Digital twins aim to uncover ‘Climate Crisis’ impact on national infrastructure

UK Power Networks is helping develop and test a new digital platform which could help power lines weather any storm.

In collaboration with organisations from across the utility sector and beyond, UK Power Networks is developing a digital platform called CReDO+ (Climate Resilience Decision Optimiser), which aims to help safeguard networks against the effects of climate change.

The tool works by creating a digital replica, or twin, of infrastructure assets then combining historic and predictive data to simulate how resilient power lines would be during different types of extreme weather.

By consolidating data from across the electricity, water, gas and telecommunications sectors, CReDO+ maps out how different infrastructure systems depend on each other, to understand risks that can spread across sectors. The platform then creates new models that predict where utilities should invest to improve resilience.

The project is being developed with partners including Connected Places Catapult, Computational Modelling Cambridge Ltd, Science and Technology Facilities Council (Hartree Centre and STFC Scientific Computing’s Data & Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure), Cadent Gas, National Gas, SP Energy Networks, National Grid Electricity Transmission, National Energy System Operator, Anglian Water, Thames Water, BT and the University of Edinburgh.

The collaboration on CReDO+ represents a shift towards more holistic risk management in the face of climate change. In today’s interconnected world, sharing data between different utilities can enable them to make better long-term investment decisions to prevent climate change causing widespread disruption to services.