Digital Twin Framework for Holistic and Prognostic Analysis of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry: A Proposal

Abstract

The provision of stable electricity supply remains the backbone of economic, social, and political developments of any nation, especially in the current digital-driven economy. In recent years, the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) has been struggling to achieve a productivity factor of 0.29, which is far below the international standard of 0.80. This abysmal achievement is far contrary to the huge financial commitments and socio-technical driven policies that have been formulated by successive governments to address continuous electricity grid collapse for over four decades. In order to address this endemic and epileptic electric supply, previous research efforts were directed to studying the individual components of NESI or policy formulations amongst others. To the best of our knowledge, research to holistically investigate all the components, their interactions and the effects of formulated policies on NESI operational efficiency is yet to be undertaken. Thus, this paper finds NESI to be a component of a System of Systems (SoS). Hence, it presents a novel framework that is premised on a SoS and digital twins. Also, the framework employs system engineering best practices to holistically analyse the problems bedevilling NESI operations with the primary aim of increasing productivity factor while reducing the rate of grid collapses. In reality, the supply of uninterrupted electricity to all sectors and citizenry is not negotiable for Nigeria to achieve the desired economic transformations and diversifications.