Commissioning a new production line is traditionally one of the most time-consuming and costly phases of industrial plant development. Engineers must verify that every component behaves correctly, that control logic executes as intended, and that the complete system meets throughput and quality targets. Errors discovered during physical commissioning often require expensive rework and can delay production start by weeks or even months.
Virtual commissioning offers an alternative by shifting much of this verification into a simulated environment. Using detailed models of the physical plant, engineers can test and debug control programs, optimise process sequences, and validate system behaviour before any real hardware is installed. The SPEAR project extended this concept by adding a critical dimension that virtual commissioning traditionally lacked: energy.
Adding Energy to the Virtual Model
Conventional virtual commissioning focuses primarily on functional correctness. The question being answered is whether the production line will perform the intended operations in the correct sequence and within acceptable cycle times. Energy consumption, if considered at all, is typically addressed as an afterthought, measured only once the physical plant is running and opportunities for fundamental design changes have passed.
The SPEAR consortium demonstrated that energy models could be integrated into the virtual commissioning workflow without significantly increasing complexity or computation time. By representing each component's energy behaviour through standardised Functional Mock-up Units, the team enabled engineers to see not just whether a production sequence works, but how much energy it consumes. This visibility during the design phase created opportunities for optimisation that would be impractical or impossible to pursue after physical installation.
The project coordinator, EKS InTec GmbH, brought extensive experience in virtual commissioning tools for the automotive industry. Their RF::SUITE platform served as one of the core simulation environments within the project, providing the infrastructure for running complex multi-component simulations with energy tracking.
Practical Benefits for Plant Designers
For plant designers, the combined approach offers several advantages. During the design phase, engineers can compare alternative layouts, equipment choices, and process sequences not only on the basis of throughput and quality but also on projected energy consumption. A robot station that meets all functional requirements but draws 15% more energy than an alternative configuration becomes visible as a suboptimal choice before any purchasing decisions are made.
During virtual commissioning itself, the energy dimension enables engineers to identify and address issues like unnecessary idle-state energy consumption, suboptimal acceleration profiles, and coordination gaps where multiple high-draw components activate simultaneously, creating avoidable demand peaks. These issues are far easier and cheaper to resolve in a virtual environment than on the physical shop floor.
Connection to Industry 4.0
The broader Industry 4.0 vision emphasises the convergence of physical production systems with digital technologies. Virtual commissioning with energy modelling fits squarely within this agenda. The digital models created during the design and commissioning phase do not become obsolete once the real plant starts operating. Instead, they transition into digital shadows that continue to track energy performance throughout the plant's operational lifetime.
This lifecycle perspective, from design through commissioning to ongoing operation, represents a significant step beyond traditional approaches where simulation models and operational monitoring systems exist as disconnected tools. By maintaining continuity between the virtual and physical worlds, the approach developed in the SPEAR project enables a feedback loop where operational data continuously improves the accuracy of simulation models, which in turn drives better optimisation recommendations.
As manufacturing faces increasing pressure to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, integrating energy awareness into every phase of plant development is likely to shift from a competitive advantage to a baseline expectation. The virtual commissioning extensions developed within the SPEAR project provide a proven methodology for making this shift.