Simplifying multi-energy system co-simulations using ENERGYSIM

Abstract

The traditional methodology for conducting technical assessments of multi-energy systems involved using domain-specific modeling tools to focus on the energy sector of interest, while making simplifying assumptions about any coupled energy sector. This was acceptable since the interactions between energy domains were minimal. However, with the expectation of an increased adoption of energy conversion technologies (such as power to X (P2X) systems: power to heat, power to gas, etc.) in the future, and consequently higher interaction between various energy sectors and stronger dependence on one another, there is a need to update the current method for conducting technical assessments. This means taking into account not only the energy sector of interest, but also any dependent energy sectors, and the associated energy transformers (P2X). In this paper, we propose a co-simulation based approach to conduct simulation-based technical assessments of multi-energy systems, which allows us to couple domain specific modeling tools. We re-introduce the tool ENERGYSIM to conduct the multi-energy system co-simulations. We motivate the importance of the proposed tool and compare it with other available tools. We highlight its main functionalities, and using a study case, we show how a multi-stakeholder, multi-energy system co-simulation can be set up and assessed.