The European energy system is facing far-reaching changes: The rapid expansion of renewable energies, the decentralisation of generation and the increasing demand for electricity due to electrification are leading to increasing complexity in the planning, operation and control of the grids. At the same time, there has been a widespread lack of digital tools to monitor, predict and efficiently control these complex systems in real time. This is precisely where the EU project TwinEU comes in.

TwinEU is a research project funded by the EU as part of Horizon Europe with a budget of 20 million euros over three years. The project involves 75 partners from 15 different countries. OFFIS is supporting Amprion as a subcontractor in the project.

The aim is to develop a federated digital twin of the European electricity system that links national and regional digital twins with each other. This should enable grid operators to work together across borders, recognise potential risks at an early stage and plan measures with foresight. TwinEU thus makes a key contribution to the resilience, efficiency and sustainability of Europe's future energy system.

The central components of the TwinEU project are a scalable and interoperable architecture that networks local digital twins with each other, as well as a cloud-based platform - the so-called TwinEU Service Workbench - via which applications, data and computing resources are orchestrated. It also enables secure, data-sovereign exchange via an energy-related data room infrastructure based on European standards such as Gaia-X. Artificial intelligence, real-time simulations, automated data analyses and model-based forecasting tools help grid operators to better understand complex system states, optimise operating decisions and simulate future developments with foresight.