VeraGrid (formerly GridCal) — The Complete Guide: Free Power Grid Planning and Simulation
VeraGrid (formerly GridCal) is open-source software (MPL-2.0) for power-system planning and simulation, written in Python. It has a graphical interface for drawing the grid and editing it in tables, and it can also be driven as a library from code.
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 vendorWhat you get
- Load flow — AC and DC, including unbalanced three-phase analysis.
- Short circuit and OPF — fault currents and optimal power flow.
- Contingency analysis — outage scenarios and cascading failures.
- Dynamic simulation — RMS and EMT, plus state estimation.
- Planning tools — grid reduction, reliability assessment and investment optimisation.
Who it suits
Grid engineers looking for a free alternative to commercial packages who want both a graphical interface and the option to automate in code. The licence allows any use, including commercial work, with no registration and no licence key. Anyone who knew GridCal will find the same project here under a new name.
Related tools
For grid analysis in scripts — pandapower. For power flow calculations in MATLAB or Octave — MATPOWER. For a learning version of a commercial package — PowerWorld Simulator Demo.
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 vendorMATPOWER
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 vendorPowerWorld Simulator (Demo)
PowerWorld Corporation
Power flow, OPF and transient stability simulation for power grids — a demo version for education and evaluation, up to 13 buses.
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
VeraGrid combines a graphical interface with the analytical depth of a professional tool — one of the most complete open alternatives to commercial grid software.