An electrical digital twin creates a single, continuously accurate source of truth across design and operations, allowing power systems to operate more effectively, efficiently and reliably.
In the now-distant past of the 20th century, navigating while on a road trip was a physical task. Drivers used hefty books of road maps to help them find their way around the country, tracing their route page by page and knowing that the information they relied on was only as up to date as the book’s year of publication.
In 2026, this cumbersome book has been condensed into a dynamic, responsive map app we can carry around on our phones.
A similar transformation has taken place in the world of engineering electrical power systems. According to Matthew Cooke, Regional Director at software company ETAP, navigating an electrical project without a digital twin is like relying on an old-fashioned street directory to find your way around a city.
“Many people do still operate a power system using paper-based records, system complexity is increasing,” he said.
“A unified platform like ETAP helps engineers modernise electrical system design, operations and optimisation.”
ETAP’s electrical design and operations digital twin platform is part of the software portfolio for electric power systems offered by global industrial technology leader Schneider Electric. The software, says Shaikh Sahid Hossain, ETAP Software Chief Commercial Officer, combines multiple dimensions in the physical world to create a digital representation.
“We create a comprehensive electrical digital twin model that covers the project and asset lifecycle right from its inception, through the design, building, operating, maintenance and optimisation stages, and all the way to retirement or decommissioning,” he said.
“To convert the physical asset into an electrical digital twin, we bring in all the physical, electrical and characteristic attributes, contextualise them, then put them into a 2D environment with a single line diagram so that the electrical engineers, operators and managers involved in the project can understand the connectivity and contextualise the data.”
The twin can then be used for digital-based simulations that reflect real-world scenarios and conditions in the electrical system. Over that can be layered a 3D environment reflecting the infrastructure in which the asset sits.
“Then, finally, we move into a real-time environment, where we connect to the sensors and introduce real-time data from the electrical components and equipment,” Hussein said.
“Eventually it creates a data lake that allows for forecast-management applications, predictions and what-if simulations.”
A single source of truth
Rather than complex technological systems designed for a distant future, Hussein and Cooke see digital twins as tools that provide practical and accessible functionality today to power system owners, consultants, operators and infrastructure teams.
“Without a change management and revision control process in place, people don’t know what they have in their systems; they can’t gain insights into their facility or predict future changes,” Hossain said.
“An ETAP digital twin’s situational awareness and intelligence, however, can predict a failure before it happens. A digital twin is like a flight simulator that allows people to understand their facility before they get into the cockpit and take off.”
A continuously updated digital model like this supports better lifecycle decision-making, but working without one means disconnected tools and static documents can result in risk, inefficiency and unexpected costs.
“We just spoke to a customer who had more than 1000 PDF drawings, none of which they were sure were up to date,” Cooke said.
“They didn’t know what their system looked like, and often when you’re managing a big power system, you might subcontract out pieces of work here and there. One subcontractor might create drawings in AutoCAD, another might give you a PDF drawing, and a third may not even update your drawings.”
Another potential use case shared by Hossain and Cooke involves a scenario in which the digital twin is deployed to optimise a microgrid.
“When you’re designing a power system, you make assumptions about how much load you’re going to have, then you design the power system and select your primary generation equipment on that basis,” Cooke said.
“But the actual operating conditions of the plant may be totally different to what your design conditions are. By modelling the digital twin, and trialling different options, such as adding a battery energy storage system, or BESS, you can determine how to fix any power issues.”
Added the BESS to the microgrid on the digital twin allows the operator to understand how it improves the system’s reliability and commercial returns, giving them the chance to then adopt that change in real life.
Immediate benefits
Integrating an electrical digital twin into a project provides immediate and valuable benefits. Cooke points to switching sequence management as an example of one of these advantages.
“If someone at your organisation needs to do some maintenance on part of an electrical system, they have to work out switching procedures,” he said.
“Those have to be reviewed, validated, approved. With a digital twin, you can do that with a click of a button without waiting for an engineer to draft a sequence, send it off to get reviewed, then approved and executed.”
According to Hossain, organisations can unlock immediate value from unified models across four potential foundations: availability, reliability, sustainability and optimisation.
“The only challenge is the organisation’s mindset: its resistance to change,” he said.
“The technology is available and the use cases are there. Electrical digital twins are a foundational layer that everyone has to adapt to if you want to introduce them.”
And while digital twins are common across the engineering landscape, used in sectors from medical to construction to infrastructure and more, ETAP’s electrical digital twins are unique.
“Most of the time, the limits of a digital twin in the construction industry or in the process industry are within the 3D environment,” Hossain said.
“The electrical digital twin ETAP has built covers the 1D, 2D and 3D environments, as well as real time, historical data and forecasted data. It covers and touches the entire life cycle. You can see your past, present, and future.”
For more information on the possibilities of ETAP’s electrical digital twins, register for Schneider’s webinar.
