Project at a glance

Facts about the project: 

Heat pump and refrigeration systems are expected to play a key role in future energy systems. By digitalizing these systems, improved performances and sophisticated controls are enabled, which support the integration into smart grids. However, this requires increased knowledge about the system during operation. This may be obtained by the use of digital twins.

What are digital twins?

Digital twins are sets of numerical models, which are virtual representations of a physical system. These representations adapt continuously to the physical system, monitor its operation, and may be used for detailed analyses.

Possible services enabled by digital twins

Possible services enabled by digital twin applications include the following:

• Advanced system monitoring
• Fault detection and diagnosis
• Optimized system operation.

Why develop digital twins for heat pump and refrigeration systems?

The objective of developing digital twins for heat pump and refrigeration systems is approached by developing reusable, modular, and adaptive models as well as advanced methods for analyzing the systems wrt. specific services. 

The project aims at making the use of digital twins more accessible to potential users, to decrease the application barriers, and to demonstrate the benefits of existing systems. This will contribute to the possibility of exploiting the full potential of such systems and to facilitate the integration in smart grids.

Moreover, the project aims at reducing the modelling efforts associated with digital twins by developing reusable, modular, and self-learning models as well as developing advanced methods for analyzing the system specifically developed for the intended services. This enables not only an efficient implementation process and, thereby, a decreased investment cost of digital twins, but it also enables an enhanced exploitation of the system potentials.