Unlocking digital twins project

Project highlights

We've worked on establishing industry-wide data standards and tools for digital twins.

Challenge: Avoiding duplicated effort

Digital twins use real-time data from sensors. They show a digital representation of the current state of a real-world system. This enables data-driven decisions to be made and problems to be identified proactively. It will also help improve resilience to problems such as water scarcity. 

Many water companies are experimenting with digital twins. However, a lock of common data standards can bring challenges. It also requires extra investment in redeveloping algorithms for each company. 

Solution: An industry-wide standard

We've worked on establishing industry-wide data standards and tools. This is for developing and implementing digital twins in the UK water sector. The aim is to enable consistent and efficient asset and process monitoring.

How the project works

Key objectives for the project included:

• Demonstrate the value of shared standards for digital twins in the UK water industry
• Develop open-source customisable scripts to create a standard digital twin
• Pioneer research and development of graph digital twins within this space
• Put in place a set of recipes for translating water company data into a shared network

The project has successfully achieved its aims and developed the customisable scripts. It demonstrates the value of data standards and generalisable code. This enables the foundation for further rapid, and consistent innovation. The script will be released to be accessed externally for free during 2025.

Timeline and collaboration 

The £334,800 project funded by Ofwat started in October 2023. We worked with Sand Technologies and Severn Trent Water. The project was completed in September 2024. Post-project benefits tracking and knowledge sharing will be until summer 2025.