Digital Twin of a Commercial Building Microgrid: Economic & Environmental Sustainability Analysis

With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, the idea of digital twinning is becoming more and more well-known in business and academics globally. A microgrid (MG) digital twin is a digital representation of a MG that mimics the behavior of its physical counterpart using high-fidelity models and simulation platforms. The physical system is constantly monitored and managed by the digital twin. This paper develops a digital twin of a real time MG, installed at the commercial building, and evaluates the electrical, financial, and environmental performance of the MG. The MG digitaltwin is analyzed based on three seasons namely summer, winter and rainy. The power management of the MG is achieved by regulating the DC link voltage and further maintaining the power balance between generation & load demand. The economic and environmental analysis shows that, after installing real-time MG, the total cost of power consumption of buildingandtotal CO2 emission is drastically reduced especially in summer andwinter seasons.