Architecture Model for a Holistic and Interoperable Digital Energy Management Platform

The modern digital era is characterized by a plethora of emerging technologies, methodologies and techniques that are employed in the manufacturing industries with intent to improve productivity, to optimize processes and to reduce operational costs. Yet, algorithms and methodological approaches for improvement of energy consumption and environmental impact are not integrated with the current operational and planning tools used by manufacturing companies. One possible reason for this is the difficulty in bridging the gap between the most advanced energy related ICT tools, developed within the scope of the industry 4.0 era, and the legacy systems that support most manufacturing operational and planning processes. Consequently, this paper proposes a conceptual architecture model for a digital energy management platform, which is comprised of an IIoT-based platform, strongly supported by energy digital twin for interoperability and integrated with AI-based energy datadriven services. This conceptual architecture model enables companies to analyse their energy consumption behaviour, which allows for the understanding of the synergies among the variables that affect the energy demand, and to integrate this energy intelligence with their legacy systems in order to achieve a more sustainable energy demand. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.