A review of simulation software for energy systems: Design, functionality, and applications

Energy software plays a crucial role in the energy transition, contributing to the sustainability of the world. This paper presents a systematic summary and review of various software products. Different types of software tools for energy generation, transmission, distribution, storage, and consumption and their features, limitations, and principles of each software tool, along with examples of their application in design and optimization were summarized. Recent development history of energy software, highlighting research gaps, working principles, and underlying architectures were also discussed. Only a few software covers the entire energy system process, and no software focuses solely on energy trading. The United States retains the largest market share (60 % still work). Among 34 surviving software products, only 16 software products have achieved low modeling error, high precision, long-term stability, full process coverage, high compatibility, and strong visualization. In zero-carbon park quantitative tests, the quantitative assessment results indicated software with high accuracy in short-term or transient analysis may require further consideration and comparison when simulating longer time scales. Finally, we discuss emerging insights and future directions, providing recommendations for energy software development. This review aims to assist researchers in better utilizing energy software and expanding the scope of "energy" and "software" issues.