CASE STUDY

Creation of Digital Twin Platform to Drive Decarbonization in Birmingham

Siemens Advanta is developing a Digital Twin platform for Birmingham as part of the UKRI Innovate UK funded project – Digital InnovAtion TransfOrMatIve Change (DIATOMIC) programme, in partnership with University of Birmingham (UoB), Birmingham City University (BCU), and Aston University. This transformative initiative aims to foster informed decision making, ensuring the efficient allocation of resources and maximizing the impact of investments. By leveraging the power of the Digital Twin, we are dedicated to propelling Birmingham towards a more sustainable and prosperous future.

This groundbreaking project is set to establish an exemplary and sustainable working and living ecosystem, setting new standards for net zero practices and sustainability, pushing the boundaries of current ambitions and supporting the vision for the net zero transition of Birmingham.

A key aspect of this approach involves collaborative efforts with residents and local businesses to ensure that the development caters to the needs and aspirations of all community stakeholders. The DIATOMIC accelerator program serves as an exemplar of collaboration by Connected Places Catapult and partners Aston University, Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, Birmingham City Council, Birmingham City University, Digital Birmingham, Transport for West Midlands, University of Birmingham, West Midlands Combined Authority, Siemens Advanta, and other industry innovators to position Birmingham as a leading, sustainable city.

To transform Birmingham into a leading digital and sustainable city, our clients sought a cloud-based Digital Twin platform to enable monitoring and analysis of key digital twin use cases and serve as a foundation to empowers businesses, public entities, and individuals in shaping the city's future by leveraging data-driven insights.

Client Challenge

Siemens Advanta combines global expertise with deep domain know-how and co-creation experience to create an open, scalable Digital Twin platform with defined pathways to clean energy and net zero emissions.

Advisory
Discovery of stakeholder priorities, requirements gathering and consolidation to formulate prioritized, value-driven use cases. Augmenting project teams with domain and technology expertise.
Solution Design
Co-designing a digital twin base platform to realize prioritized use cases in the areas of traffic impact and air quality, energy systems and infrastructure, and hydrogen fuel cells, utilize modular cloud technologies, and enable future scalability and growth.
Solution Implementation
Deploying a scalable Digital Twin platform that enables the Digital Twin use cases.

Our Approach

The implementation of a Digital Twin mirroring Birmingham will empower local digital investment, promote the expansion of environmental enterprise and innovation, and provide insights for net-zero emissions, improved well-being, and economic opportunities through smart, data-driven solutions, supported by a collaborative forum for ongoing progress.

By creating a platform for innovation and sustainable practices, this initiative will significantly contribute to the economic growth of Birmingham and reinforce its reputation as a frontrunner in environmental stewardship.

The Impact

This is a really important piece of work which is allowing the City of Birmingham to be pioneering in the development of city scale digital twins. The Birmingham Energy Institute has been extremely proud to help through driving this initial stage of development of the Birmingham Digital Twin which paves the way for a new way of understanding the complex urban environment and planning for the future.

Professor Martin Freer, Director of the Birmingham Energy Institute

This project follows the successful Digital Twin exploration phase for the Tyseley Environmental Enterprise District (TEED) funded by The Alan Turing Institute, where Siemens Advanta has already supported the University of Birmingham (UoB) Birmingham Energy Institute. This initial project has resulted in a comprehensive report that outlines the initial steps taken towards the creation of a digital twin.

Read full press release published by our client University of Birmingham:
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This project builds on BCU’s existing relationships with Birmingham City Council through the Big Data Corridor project which was focused on growing the region's clean tech, health tech and medical tech markets.

Read full press release published by our client Birmingham City University:
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