Troublesome or Trustworthy: How Can Digital Twins Truly Deliver Value?

Energy assets are inherently built to perform to the highest standards and undergo rigorous assurance processes throughout their lifetime. Until now, there has been no requirement for their virtual replicas to be as thoroughly checked and maintained.

Energy companies are increasingly utilizing digital twin technology to bring asset information from multiple sources together in a single and secure place, connecting 3D models with real-time field data during the operation phase. Some digital twins are simple, covering a single component. Others are highly complex, spanning entire facilities. What they all have in common, regardless of size and scope, is that they must be trusted. Afterall, millions of decisions about the design, construction and operation of hundreds of thousands of real-world assets will be taken based on them.

In October 2019, Kongsberg Digital, a subsidiary of KONGSBERG, signed a NOK100m ($10.5 million) contract scope to digitalize the Nyhamna facility, a gas processing and export hub for Ormen Lange and other fields connected to the Polarled pipeline. It was developed in less than 100 days, and since January 2020, the Nyhamna Dynamic Digital Twin has been in operation and evolving continuously through monthly product releases, focusing on safe, effective and integrated work processes and optimization of production and energy use. The model has since been extended to cover the subsea facilities.

FutureOn is another pioneer of digital twin technology. Its FieldTwinTM builds a digital copy of the oil and gas field and uses advanced visualization to drive collaboration across application programming interfaces (API) platforms and break down silos. As information traditionally stored in databases and expert systems can often be difficult to harness due to size or file format, or is left unused, the technology gives teams instant access to the right information. This will enable better collaboration between different disciplines and parties and thereby, significantly speed up the early design phase, unlock savings, and improve decarbonsation efforts. The company was recently been awarded a contract with AkerBP.

DIGITAL TWINS DEMAND CLOSE SUPERVISION

Today’s digital twin goes beyond being a mirror image of an asset on a desktop. It can become a dynamic framework for advanced digitalization and analytics. While this heralds a new era of visually interacting with data and models, guidance on its use, management and maintenance is critical if it's to be trusted to deliver the value expected.

Rather than think of it as a single, all-encompassing virtual system, it should be seen as a collection of elements or components, of various levels of complexity, each with their own distinct role and function.

DNV, in partnership with TechnipFMC, has published the oil and gas industry’s first recommended practice (RP) on how to build and quality-assure digital twins. DNV-RP-A204: Qualification and assurance of digital twins, sets a benchmark for the sector’s varying approaches to building and operating the technology and builds upon the principles of DNV’s RPs for data quality assessment and assurance of machine learning. It provides:

• Valuable guidance for digital twin developers
• Introduces a contractual reference between suppliers and users
• Acts as a framework for verification and validation of the technology.

The framework provides clarity on the definition of a digital twin; required data quality and algorithm performance; and requirements on the interaction between the digital twin and the operating system. This will create a level playing field to the sector’s varying technical definitions of, and expectations of, digital twins.

The methodology is currently being used by leading operators and technology vendors such as Equinor, Aker BP, NationalGrid, VISCO and Cognite.

BUILDING DIGITAL TRUST AND EFFICIENCY

When buying solutions that offer digital twin capabilities, it is critical to consider the need, not the application itself. By falling into the trap of focussing on the features of the system rather than the decisions that a digital twin should support, one may end up paying two or three times for the same features as many vendors are extending the capabilities of their solutions and offer overlapping capabilities.

The journey from data as ‘raw materials’ to where you serve the data for consumption can sometimes be very long and pass through several stakeholders. Therefore, the activity to monitor the condition of the data so that it is fit for use all the way to where it is needed, is often challenging. Hence, to have a digital twin that can be trusted at any one time often requires the operating procedures to be modified. For instance, by converting the component in the digital system before it is replaced physically, and then release the updated digital version in parallel with the modfication of the asset rather than the other way around, is one way to remain up-to-date at any one time.

For digital twins to be efficient they must work well with the existing IT infrastructure and asset information models as they need to ensure that the right quality of data is available for the decisions to be made. As the digital twin involves the integration of various IoT sensors and technologies for virtualizing the physical twin, with growing connectivity arises the risk of security, compliance and data protection, and regulations. Essentially, the digital twin may be used as a possible entry point for a cyber attack, an aspect that is also addressed in the new RP from DNV.

Inherently, all organizations have their own way of doing things. To get true value from a digital twin requires a new way of working, a different asset operating approach or model. Hence, acknowledging that change management and adapting the culture within a business is at the crux of this transition to a digital mindset is key to successful implementation of digital twins.

To realize the potential of digital twins, the sector must start treating digital transformation like any other vital business process. That means defining goals and strategies that create long-term value and help organizations to take the lead in a rapidly changing energy landscape.

HERE TO STAY

Digital technology and digitalization are key enablers for the safe and sustainable transition to a low-carbon energy system. Their potential transformative effects are massive provided that they can be trusted.

The size of the global market size rises exponentially year-on-year, with COVID-19 catapulting its adoption. In 2020, it was valued at $3.1 billion and is projected to reach $48.2 billion by 2026. As this technology evolves, it is vital to combine the criticality and the use cases of the digital twin to fully understand the quality and all the components in it.

This story was originally featured in ON&T Magazine's November/December 2021 issue. Click here to read more.