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New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Europe’s rocky road towards energy digitalisation
5/3/2025
8 min read
Feature
Europe’s efforts to digitalise its energy sector are hampered by a number of challenges. These include inadequate interoperability between systems, insufficient data governance and cyber security measures, and limited ‘grid observability’. These handicaps all combine to restrict real-time monitoring and advanced forecasting of energy delivery. Nnamdi Anyadike reports.
It is widely accepted that massive investments in solar photovoltaics, heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030 will be required to achieve a reduction in Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions. But in order to achieve the targeted 55% reduction in these emissions it is estimated that renewables will need to provide a 42.5% share of the energy mix by the end of this decade. This can only come about through digitalisation of the energy sector.
Digital twins – a key enabler for the transition
Digital solutions such as digital twins, artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics will be integral to ensuring grid resilience, renewable energy integration and operational efficiency. Creating digital twins of energy grids that simulate, monitor and optimise energy flows in real-time is crucial to enhancing the European Union’s (EU) ability to manage grid flexibility and predict supply-demand imbalances. It is also necessary to successfully integrate renewable energy sources more effectively into the grid.
A 36-month EU project supported by Horizon Europe, that kicked off in January 2024, aims to address some of these issues through the creation of a pan-European digital twin of the electricity system. The TwinEU project synthesises insights from previous EU-funded projects under the European Green Deal and REPowerEU initiatives. The latter is a European Commission (EC) plan to end reliance on Russian fossil fuels before 2030 in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.