Digital twins in electrical systems: concepts, architectures, applications and technological challenges
Keywords:
digital twin, power systems, smart grid, predictive maintenance, interoperabilityAbstract
Introduction: Digital twins are increasingly used to connect physical electrical assets with continuously updated virtual representations for monitoring, diagnosis, simulation and maintenance. Objective: To systematically examine literature from 2018 to 2022 on concepts, architectures, applications and technological challenges of digital twins in electrical systems, differentiating uses in grids, generation, maintenance, reliability and electrical assets. Method: A systematic review applied sequential identification, deduplication, screening and full-text eligibility criteria. Publications were included when they fell within the defined period, had a DOI, addressed digital twins or closely related synchronized digital representations in electrical or energy contexts, and provided enough technical information for classification. Twenty-five studies formed the final corpus. Results: The evidence shows that digital twins evolved from conceptual definitions toward asset-centered and operation-oriented applications. Recurrent components include data acquisition, physical or data-driven models, bidirectional information exchange, state updating and analytics. Predictive maintenance and condition assessment are prominent uses, while interoperability, model fidelity, synchronization, computational cost and validation remain persistent challenges. Conclusions: Digital twins offer a promising framework for integrating monitoring and decision support, but technological maturity depends on explicit synchronization mechanisms, validated models and scalable data architectures. Future studies should report architectures more consistently and compare performance across representative electrical operating conditions.
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26. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
27. Not applicable. This study is a review of published literature and did not involve direct participation of human beings, animals, interventions, or collection of identifiable personal data.
28. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) USE STATEMENT
29. The authors declare that the generative artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT (OpenAI) was used exclusively to support the organization of the article and translation of text. Its use did not determine the scientific content, study design, source selection, data analysis, interpretation of results, or conclusions. Full responsibility for the content remains with the authors.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Iván Rodrigo Talavera López
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