| AI & digital twins
Designed in May 2021 and completed in December 2022, it was used by internal customers at Korea Water Resources Corporation from April 2023. Utilising real-time data and simulation models to support decision-making for flood response and water resource management, the platform includes a GIS-based geospatial digital twin of the entire Sumjin Dam and river water system in Korea. Encompassing a watershed area of 4913km2
, river length of 173km,
and 91 water infrastructures, it has high-precision geospatial topography and facility information for the dams and river. Synchronising real-time data such as rainfall, dam and river water levels, flow rate, and closed-circuit television, the platform incorporates three hydraulic and hydrological simulation models for efficient dam operation considering river conditions. The goal of such data-based smart water management is to solve many tasks that have been routinely carried out in the past, more intuitively, reliably, and quickly with the help of the digital world. The authors add that the advantages digital twins and the direction it could pursue in smart water resource management can be summarised by the following: Visualisation: Visualise the three-dimensional representation of geospatial information and data analysis results for easy understanding. Intuition: Intuitively acquire information or knowledge with the help of digitisation without a complex reasoning process. Data synchronisation: Increase productivity by providing real-time synchronisation of related data.
Extract value and knowledge from information: Provide information with engineering value to users and contribute to rapid and reliable decision-making. Sustainable use and practice: A usability-based platform that practitioners can continuously and conveniently use in their actual work.
The authors conclude that further research is required for future verification and validation of their platform, and this will take time.
Overcoming challenges Managing a hydropower facility with so many
components to oversee can be a cumbersome and complicated process. “Hydropower facilities are like snowflakes; even individual turbines within a plant are unique due to their individualised construction and varying upgrades over the years,” says Nathan Fletcher, senior hydropower engineer at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in the US. And this is where hydropower digital twins solutions can help with such operational challenges. It is also why, after hearing dam operators’ repeated frustrations, experts from multiple domains collaborated and developed a platform called Digital Twins for Hydropower Systems in 2023 to reduce outages and extend the lifespan of a dam. With new updates released in September 2024, dam operators can now use the dashboard to adjust factors that can potentially wear down a turbine’s efficiency, like unexpected electricity demand or extreme water level changes.
www.waterpowermagazine.com | January 2025 | 15
Above: Hydropower digital twins solutions can helps with operator challenges Image by Kelly Machart. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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