GridLAB-D — The Complete Guide: Simulating Distribution Grids and End Uses
GridLAB-D was developed at the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Most load-flow tools treat a customer as a fixed number; GridLAB-D simulates the customers themselves, from the air conditioner to the electric car, so it shows how the grid behaves over a day, a season or a year.
GridLAB-D
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
PNNL power-distribution simulator with models of loads, buildings, distributed generation and storage.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Three-phase power flow — for unbalanced distribution networks.
- End-use models — buildings and HVAC, water heaters and appliances.
- Distributed generation and storage — solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles.
- Markets and control — dynamic pricing, demand response and control schemes.
- Open source — a BSD-style licence, free for commercial use as well.
Who it suits and what to know
Electrical engineers, distribution utilities and researchers studying how much distributed generation a feeder can host, or what happens when many electric vehicles charge at the same hour. There is no graphical interface: models are written as GLM text files and results are saved to files for analysis. Development has slowed in recent years, so check the GitHub page for the current release before you start.
Related tools
For network analysis in Python with a friendlier workflow — pandapower. For energy system planning and generation mix — PyPSA. For power flow and optimisation on transmission networks — MATPOWER.
pandapower
University of Kassel and Fraunhofer IEE
Power grid analysis in Python — load flow, optimal power flow, short circuit and state estimation for distribution and transmission.
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PyPSA
PyPSA community (TU Berlin)
Optimisation of power and energy systems — economic dispatch, capacity expansion, storage and sector coupling.
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MATPOWER
MATPOWER development team
A toolbox for power flow and optimal power flow — a standard in research and teaching, and it runs in free GNU Octave.
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VeraGrid (formerly GridCal)
Santiago Peñate Vera and contributors
Power grid planning and simulation software with a GUI — load flow, short circuit, OPF, contingencies and dynamic simulation.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
GridLAB-D fits when the question is how customers and distributed generation change a distribution grid over time. A powerful research tool with a steep learning curve.