Case studies: the metaverse in the power industry

Soon after the metaverse concept became mainstream in late 2021, Enel saw the collaborative potential of platforms that support virtual worlds. In 2022, Enel developed its own metaverse platform populated with digital twins of the assets and energy infrastructures that it operates.

Labelled as the GridVerse, the objective of the platform is to provide a virtual environment where employees can remotely collaborate and learn using accurate virtual replicas of physical assets.

Fabio Veronese, head of digital hubs at Enel Grids, explained in an interview the logic behind this new digital product with the following example: “You have a virtual map of a part of your network, and then you train your crew in doing normal maintenance activities. On the GridVerse…people can mutually interact and learn from one another and work in a more realistic approach.”

Combining the collaborative offerings of a metaverse platform with a roster of digital twins produces a safe environment in which employees can collectively improve how they oversee physical assets via remote interaction with their virtual counterparts.

Enel has ambitions for the GridVerse that go beyond employee training and collaboration. Veronese claims the platform could be used for “next-level engineering,” citing examples such as collaborative asset design, digital twin simulations, and 3D analytics. The latter two functions, Veronese claims, are “very important for gaining operational improvements in power utilities.”

In this way, GridVerse highlights the broad range of business operations, from training to engineering, that metaverse platforms like digital twins can improve.

Finnish technology company Varjo has rolled out virtual guidance solution ‘eSite’ to help minimise human errors at power plants. The solution can provide operational efficiency and site safety to industrial workers in safety-critical environment.

eSite offers improved safety lost time injury index and safety management to operators by using virtual reality. The solution provides design validations, operator training and makes it possible to visit sites from any location and communicate with others in virtual reality plant, factory or construction site.

It can offer instant access to the site to deliver better projects in a time and cost-efficient manner. The system offers interactive 360° features through which any person at the site can capture VR material, add comments to it and share it with others for enhanced communication.

Varjo can provide safety-critical operator training with a cost of VR simulator being 1/10th of the cost of building a physical simulator. The system can tackle the most often faced challenge of poor resolution by delivering realism through virtual simulator. Operators can access VR version of the captured site and get a better understanding of the site during planning with fewer errors.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has introduced 'Virtual4DS', a tool that aims to help in assessment and decision-making of new plants. Designers of nuclear power plants can use virtual reality and numerical software to construct virtual plants and simulate all scenarios and events throughout the lifespan of a reactor. Trainees can act in the roles of control room personnel under different reactor operating scenarios to model experience for the workers to interact with the simulator in real-time.

The CAS’s Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology department has built a system that uses virtual technology to establish an integrated simulation platform for comprehensive safety assessment. Virtual4DS can tackle extreme incidents and assist decision-makers in assessing the safety of new designs. The residents living near a proposed site can also be ensured about their safety with the help of this solution. The platform uses multiple parameters to simulate and analyse radiation levels and long-term environmental impacts.

Virtual4DS can be connected to a new nuclear power plant's control system to run a mock operation, staff training as well as a simulation of an emergency to test the effectiveness of contingency plans. Trainers can also pause the simulator during exercises to evaluate and critique the performance of participants.

GE Power, an American energy techniques company, has selected a Virtual Reality (VR), simulation technology and advanced visualisation company Virtalis to leverage 'Virtalis Visionary Render software' and 'ActiveWall 3D/VR display system'. The software allows engineers to experience and access a collaborative, real-time, and immersive VR environment created from huge multi-source 3D datasets.

Visionary Render software, an immersive software platform for visualisation that allows users to create dynamic, interactive virtual environments and simulations. The software allows engineers to view, interact and explore the design using structured and unstructured data to connect engineering quality CAD to real-time and contextual data to deliver enterprise-wide models that are used across the lifecycle of the product.

The platform helps to discover obstacles that might cause a delay in construction time and require additional cost. It evades re-design tasks, aids comparison between different design models thereby improving GE's original CAD datasets and enables an engineer to identify issues of servicing and maintenance.

The software platform helps GE to enhance their imaginative designs and communicate with potential customers through 1:1 design scale. Utilising immersive visualisation technologies can help organisations and individuals informed decisions at pace with the next level of connected working and share common collaborative visuals for further development.