Framework for the Development of a Digital Twin for Solar Water Heating Systems

Energy efficiency in buildings is a key issue in the context of smart cities and should embrace a more intensive use of renewable energies. As such, many European countries are now promoting the use of solar energy for hot water production, giving financial incentives and introducing mandatory building regulations. It is proposed a framework for the development of a digital twin-based management system for a solar heating system. This is a concept framework and thus no results are yet available. The proposed framework takes advantage of the latest technologies, machine learning, IoT, experience-based information interchange between the physical system and the digital twin to achieve energy efficiency optimization. This novel approach integrates connectionist models and optimization techniques, bringing together complementary reasoning strategies for efficient energy use in real-time. This framework contributes to a better understanding of the effectiveness of digital twins on the automation of energy-dependent systems and explores new dimensions concerning the integration of autonomous intelligent management systems into physical systems.