Digital Twin, Simulation BIM and Virtual Reality Models for Substation Lifecycle in Engineering, Operation, Asset Management & Maintenance

Creating Digital Twin models for already existing substations is one of the big challenges for the Transmission and Distribution (T&D) electrical industry - to reach the goal of digitalization of the assets. The Digital Twin follows all changes and represents the physical twin in a digital model - can be used for simulating, analysis of data, understanding of problems, monitoring and simulation of real-world conditions. To get a Digital Twin with innovative methods and less effort, the Scan to Twin principle is introduced, by creating - out of point clouds - a smart Building Information Modeling (BIM) model and Digital Twin with connections to other databases, as a real Virtual Reality (VR) substation simulation model. This paper describes the process of how to get the models, step by step, with a real use-case of an existing substation project of a transmission operator. The paper introduces a newly developed VR client solution connected to a BIM engineering solution to create - in a few clicks - VR models of existing substation BIM models.