A review of open-source energy system modeling tools

Abstract

Nowadays, the transition to open markets, the rapid growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar, and the shift towards electrification in transportation and industry for decarbonization have increased the demand for advanced energy system models with detailed spatial and temporal data. This paper utilizes a comprehensive literature review and selects a representative set of open-source tools for evaluation. A comparative analysis of 17 open-source energy system modeling tools and their commercial alternatives was conducted. The paper analyzes many open-source aspects such as code commits, updates, programming languages, license details, citations, and energy system modeling features such as power flows (PFs), continuation PF, dynamic analysis, short-circuit analysis, contingency analysis, transportation model, optimal PF (OPF), multi-period OPF, unit commitment (UC), investment optimization, and graphic user interface. Based on the results, the paper suggests appropriate tools used for according power/energy system analysis objective: MATPOWER for power system analysis and Python for power system analysis (PyPSA) for energy system analysis.