Evaluation of two approaches for simulating cyber-physical energy systems

Simulation-driven design has become an important design process in many technological domains. It allows a more rapid deployment of innovative technology in products that have to fulfil high quality standards. In view of the success of this approach it is also becoming an increasingly important tool for the development of the future energy system. Due to the size and complexity of such systems this is however a challenging task. Energy systems combine not only a multitude of physical domains, related directly to the processes of generation, storage, distribution and consumption, but will in the future also increasingly rely on communication technologies and software infrastructure for information exchange and control purposes. This article evaluates two distinct software tools, SimulinkiSimscape and Ptolemy II, that nevertheless have the potential to serve as a framework for modelling, simulating and analysing such cyberphysical energy systems.