Grid-Metaverse: The Path From Digital Twins and Prototype Tests on DC Microgrids

With the development of cutting-edge technologies and the efforts of business giants, Metaverse is becoming increasingly reachable. In addition to the fields of healthcare, education and cultural tourism, Metaverse will also have a profound impact on the power grid. The digital twin (DT) is regarded as the foundation of Metaverse, but its high cost hinders the broad application of DTs in power grids. In this paper, we propose a path to build the DTs in the direct current (DC) microgrid, which is a representative block in the future power grid with the penetration of renewable energy sources, forming Grid-Metaverse that can significantly reduce the cost and improve the interactivity. A model-based DT, which is originated from the physical model, and a data-driven DT, using the graph neural network with the data from the model-based one, are built together to illustrate this path and to show their roles in the Grid-Metaverse. Moreover, in the prototype tests, the threats of denial-of-service (DoS) and false data injection (FDI) attacks are validated through the developed DTs.