MATPOWER — The Complete Guide: Free Power Flow and OPF in MATLAB and Octave
MATPOWER is an open-source set of tools (BSD-3-Clause) for power-system simulation and optimisation, widely used in academia, government and industry. It runs inside MATLAB or GNU Octave — so it can be used entirely free.
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.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Power flow — voltages and flows across the grid.
- Optimal power flow — OPF to find the best operating point.
- Standard test cases — for checking and comparing methods.
- Transparent code — read, modify and extend any calculation.
- Scripting — run many scenarios with commands.
What to know
There is no graphical interface — the work is done with commands and scripts. The code is under BSD and allowed for any use, including commercial work, but the network case files are not covered by the code’s BSD licence, so check their source before using them commercially. It suits students, researchers and engineers who need transparent grid calculations.
Related tools
For grid analysis in Python — pandapower. For open software with a graphical interface — VeraGrid. For energy-system modelling and planning — PyPSA.
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.
Get it from the vendorVeraGrid (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 vendor
GNU Octave
GNU Project
Numerical computing in MATLAB-compatible syntax — matrices, equations, signals and plots.
Get it from the vendor
PyPSA
PyPSA community (TU Berlin)
Optimisation of power and energy systems — economic dispatch, capacity expansion, storage and sector coupling.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
MATPOWER is a well-known, free workhorse for grid calculations — and with GNU Octave you do not even need a MATLAB licence.