How might we connect open data and digital twins to optimise energy across the community and what decisions might that enable?
Challenge
Whilst almost all water companies are investing in digital twins and models to optimise specific assets, systems, or domains, these models often operate in isolation. As a result, important cross-cutting questions remain unanswered, particularly around how energy is used across systems, both with the organisation and across wider communities, and how to optimise pump performance in real operational contexts. With growing energy costs, Net Zero goals, and pressure on water system resilience, there’s a need to move beyond siloed insights.
This sprint challenges participants to explore how separate digital twins, operational models and open data sources could be connected or federated to generate new insights, unlock energy and cost efficiencies, and support better operational and planning decisions across a water network.
Proposal
Firstly, we will ensure a shared understanding of the problem and hear from a number of guest technology partners, data specialists, and operational experts to explore on current approaches and the feasibility and value of connecting digital twins and open data sources for cross-system optimisation.
With a particular focus on energy usage and using anonymised operational data, open datasets, and available digital twin data, teams will collaborate to test methods for linking models, exposing data in reusable formats, and running example queries that cut across systems.
The sprint will act as a testbed to understand what’s technically possible, where the biggest barriers lie (e.g. access, interoperability), and what types of insights or tools can be rapidly prototyped when systems are no longer siloed. Participants will be encouraged to demonstrate early concepts, from joined-up visualisations to analytical models that span different systems, or to explore broader conceptual ideas to allow the linking of such digital models.
Workstreams could include:
- Exploring concepts for integration of digital twins
- Visualisation of existing systems and derived insights in one platform
- Derived insights to key questions:
- Balancing the local power network
- Optimising for costs
- Optimising for resilience
- Decision making and achieving the balance
Coming back together, we’ll use this insight to develop an action plan to be executed. After the Innovation Festival Northumbrian Water will regularly share progress with a stakeholder group that will be created at the IF25 and use this forum to share best practices across the industry.
Target Outcomes
- Demonstrated feasibility of connecting two or more digital twins and/or datasets to answer a cross-domain operational question (e.g. pump scheduling vs. energy cost optimisation), and/or a framework in twin design to enable this
- Prototype outputs such as data connectors, visualisations, dashboards, or models showing value from joined-up insights.
- Insights into enablers and blockers, including technical (e.g. data formats, APIs), organisational (e.g. data ownership), and cultural barriers.
- Recommendations for future development, including potential areas for pilot projects or further research.
- Stronger collaboration, between the NWL and technology partners, paving the way for scalable digital twin integration and innovation.
Target Audience
This sprint would appeal to those involved with water or wastewater operations, systems modelling (digital twins or otherwise), data owners, energy managers, local authorities and environmental organisations, and those who use these types of models that may not have technical expertise to create one.
