Andrea Bonetti, Megger Sweden AB, Sweden

Digitalization is reshaping the day-to-day work of protection engineers, and major workforce publications in both Europe and the United States converge on the same conclusion: accelerated upskilling is a prerequisite for a reliable, modern power system. In Europe, the ETIP SNET Working Group 4 (2025) report “Upskilling needs for the energy system to support the energy transition with a focus on digital skills” explicitly links the energy transition to digital competence, virtual environments, new training methods, and the enabling role of digital twins. In the United States, the DOE Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan and the EPRI framework “Workforce Skills of the Future” deliver a parallel message, emphasizing that simulation and digital training must become part of everyday practice to prepare the grid workforce.

This keynote presents High Fidelity Digital Twins (HFDT) as an industry response to these policy-driven demands: manufacturer-authored, functionally equivalent replicas of protection relays and test equipment, operating in virtual time with full algorithmic fidelity. A central theme is co-simulation, where HFDT protection devices operate together with power-system models and real-time test environments to reproduce realistic system behavior and interactions. The talk will share practical experience from commercial protection-engineering training courses delivered in Sweden, where HFDT enabled each participant to work with a complete virtual setup, increasing hands-on time and individual responsibility while reducing dependence on physical lab hardware.

Beyond upskilling, the keynote will outline how HFDT combined with co-simulation supports protection workflows such as closed-loop virtual testing, pre-commissioning preparation, regression testing, and collaborative troubleshooting. It will also highlight opportunities for academia, including scalable laboratory teaching, reproducible experiments, research on protection algorithms and settings, and shared benchmark scenarios without the cost and logistics of full physical labs. The keynote will close with implications for utility adoption and future international standardization linked to digital testing and digital engineering practices.