Con Edison Builds a Digital Twin of New York City's District Heating Network

Con Edison partnered with Falkor to create a digital twin of New York City's district heating network. The Falkor Platform aggregates operational data and orchestrates simulation workflows, while Falkor K-Spice and Falkor LedaFlow simulate the dynamic behavior of steam and condensate across nearly 100 miles of underground piping. Through Falkor Surface, operators gain intuitive visualization, real-time awareness, scenario analysis, and decision support capabilities, enabling more reliable operation of the world's largest district steam heating system.

The Challenge

As the operator of the world's largest steam district heating system, Con Edison must continuously balance reliability, safety, and operational efficiency across a highly interconnected network serving Manhattan.

Understanding the dynamic behavior of steam and condensate across nearly 100 miles of underground piping is critical for preventing abnormal operating conditions, mitigating water hammer risks, investigating incidents, and optimizing operational decisions.

Con Edison sought a solution that could combine real-time operational data with physics-based simulation to create a continuously updated digital twin of its steam network.

The Solution

Con Edison partnered with Falkor to establish a digital twin of its district heating network, integrating real-time operational data, advanced transient simulation, and intuitive visualization into a single operational environment.

The solution is built on the Falkor Platform, which serves as the digital backbone of the implementation by aggregating, contextualizing, and orchestrating data flows across operational and engineering systems.

The Falkor Platform enables:

• Real-time data ingestion from field instrumentation and operational systems
• Contextualization and management of asset and network data
• Automation and orchestration of simulation workflows
• Continuous synchronization between operational data and simulation models
• Alert generation and event management
• Support for historical replay and scenario evaluation

At the core of the digital twin are Falkor K-Spice™ and LedaFlow™, which are used to simulate the transient behavior of steam and condensate throughout the network.

The simulation environment models:

• Transient two-phase steam and condensate flow
• Steam velocity and pressure dynamics
• Condensate accumulation
• Steam traps and associated piping
• Customer service connections
• Valve operations and network reconfiguration
• Manhole flooding conditions
• Severe weather impacts, including rainstorms and hurricanes

Together, the models represent approximately 100 miles of underground piping, six steam plants, and thousands of interconnected assets across Manhattan.

Turning Data into Actionable Decisions

While the Falkor Platform orchestrates data and simulations behind the scenes, Falkor Surface provides operators and engineers with a unified interface for understanding network conditions and evaluating potential actions.

Using Falkor Surface, users can:

Monitor Real-Time Operations

• Network-wide pressure conditions
• Steam velocities and flow behavior
• Condensate accumulation
• Asset and system status

Predict Water Hammer Conditions

Real-time model execution helps identify operating conditions that may lead to water hammer events, allowing operators to intervene before issues arise.

Analyze Scenarios Before Acting

Engineers can evaluate operational changes within the digital twin before implementing them in the field, including:

• Plant outages
• Valve operations
• Maintenance activities
• Customer demand changes
• Emergency response actions
• Extreme weather conditions

Accelerate Incident Investigations

Historical operational data combined with simulation replay capabilities enables teams to reconstruct events, identify root causes, and evaluate corrective actions.

Business Impact

The combination of the Falkor Platform, Falkor K-Spice, Falkor LedaFlow, and Falkor Surface provides Con Edison with a simulation-driven operational environment for managing one of the world's most complex energy distribution systems.

Outcomes

• Unified operational and engineering data into a single digital twin

• Real-time situational awareness across the steam network

• Early detection of abnormal operating conditions

• Improved prediction and mitigation of water hammer risks

• Faster investigation of operational incidents

• Enhanced planning through simulation-based decision support

• Improved resilience through weather and contingency analysis

• Better collaboration between operations, engineering, and planning teams

Why Falkor

Falkor combines industrial data operations, advanced simulation technology, and intuitive visualization to help utilities move from reactive operations to predictive decision-making.

For Con Edison, the Falkor Platform continuously aggregates and orchestrates operational data and simulation workflows, Falkor K-Spice and Falkor LedaFlow provide high-fidelity physics-based modeling of the steam network, and Falkor Surface transforms complex simulation results into actionable insights for operators and engineers.

The result is a living digital twin that supports safer, more reliable, and more efficient operation of New York City's district heating infrastructure.