Uses of the digital twins concept for energy services, intelligent recommendation systems, and demand side management: A review

Innovative solutions targeting improvements in the behavior of energy consumers will be required to achieve desired efficiency in the use of energy. Among other measures for stimulating consumers’ behavior changes based on attention triggers, personalized recommendations are essential to enhance sustainable progress towards energy efficiency. In light of this challenge, the current study focuses on innovative energy services that are based on intelligent recommendation systems and digital twins. We review several trends associated with the modeling and diffusion of energy services, taking into account the positive interrelationships existing between recommendation provisions and demand-side consumer energy behavior. This is achieved by means of a content analysis of the state-of-the-art works, focusing on the IEEE Xplore and Scopus databases. Based on this review, we present new empirical evidence to validate data-driven twin technologies as novel ways of implementing consumer-oriented demand-side management via sophisticated abstraction of consumers energy behaviors, and identify various barriers associated with the adoption of energy services, especially as they relate to the implementation and overall adoption of the digital-twins concept. Lastly, we use the review to summarize a coherent policy recommendations related to the wide-spread adoption of the digital-twins concept, and demand-side management solutions in general.