---
title: "Open energy system models"
chunk: 7/16
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_energy_system_models"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:49:30.157219+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

renpass is an acronym for Renewable Energy Pathways Simulation System. renpass is a simulation electricity model with high regional and temporal resolution, designed to capture existing systems and future systems with up to 100% renewable generation. The software is being developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSES or ZNES), University of Flensburg, Germany. The project runs a website, from where the codebase can be download. renpass is written in R and links to a MySQL database. A PDF manual is available. renpass is also described in a PhD thesis. As of 2015, renpass is being extended as renpassG!S, based on oemof.
renpass is an electricity dispatch model which minimizes system costs for each time step (optimization) within the limits of a given infrastructure (simulation). Time steps are optionally 15 minutes or one hour. The method assumes perfect foresight. renpass supports the electricity systems found in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The optimization problem for each time step is to minimize the electricity supply cost using the existing power plant fleet for all regions. After this regional dispatch, the exchange between the regions is carried out and is restricted by the grid capacity. This latter problem is solved with a heuristic procedure rather than calculated deterministically. The input is the merit order, the marginal power plant, the excess energy (renewable energy that could be curtailed), and the excess demand (the demand that cannot be supplied) for each region. The exchange algorithm seeks the least cost for all regions, thus the target function is to minimize the total costs of all regions, given the existing grid infrastructure, storage, and generating capacities. The total cost is defined as the residual load multiplied by the price in each region, summed over all regions.
A 2012 study uses renpass to examine the feasibility of a 100% renewable electricity system for the Baltic Sea region (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden) in the year 2050. The base scenario presumes conservative renewable potentials and grid enhancements, a 20% drop in demand, a moderate uptake of storage options, and the deployment of biomass for flexible generation. The study finds that a 100% renewable electricity system is possible, albeit with occasional imports from abutting countries, and that biomass plays a key role in system stability. The costs for this transition are estimated at 50 €/MWh. A 2014 study uses renpass to model Germany and its neighbors. A 2014 thesis uses renpass to examine the benefits of both a new cable between Germany and Norway and new pumped storage capacity in Norway, given 100% renewable electricity systems in both countries. Another 2014 study uses renpass to examine the German Energiewende, the transition to a sustainable energy system for Germany. The study also argues that the public trust needed to underpin such a transition can only be built through the use of transparent open source energy models.

=== sci2grid ===

sci2grid is a software tool for extracting, filtering, and processing data to build open-source grid models. The main objective of sci2grid is to offer easily accessible and transparent models that support further applications in science, industry, and society.
The sci2grid data models are designed to primarily process georeferenced information for objects such as supply lines, substations or compressor stations. This information is automatically extracted from open data sources and may include geo-coordinates, line lengths and diameters, or installed capacities. In addition, complementary information is manually collected from individual online sources, such as press articles, verified, and integrated into the models. Missing data is estimated using heuristic methods to provide consistent and comprehensive data models for subsequent analyses. At present, it provides gas transport and electricity transmission grid models for Europe that can be used to investigate grid-related challenges.
Such openly available and transparent grid models have a wide range of applications. They can be used for the assessment of energy system scenarios, the simulation of grid operation, the identification of bottlenecks in energy supply, the evaluation of grid development plans, and the determination of future grid expansion needs.
The current focus of sci2grid is on electricity transmission and gas transport infrastructures in Europe. However, the methods developed can also be applied to individual countries or other geographical regions worldwide.

=== SIREN ===

SIREN stands for SEN Integrated Renewable Energy Network Toolkit. The project is run by Sustainable Energy Now, an NGO based in Perth, Australia. The project maintains a website. SIREN runs on Windows and the source code is hosted on SourceForge. The software is written in Python and uses the SAM model (System Advisor Model) from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory to perform energy calculations. SIREN uses hourly datasets to model a given geographic region. Users can use the software to explore the location and scale of renewable energy sources to meet a specified electricity demand. SIREN utilizes a number of open or publicly available data sources: maps can be created from OpenStreetMap tiles and weather datasets can be created using NASA MERRA-2 satellite data.
A 2016 study using SIREN to analyze Western Australia's South-West Interconnected System (SWIS) finds that it can transition to 85% renewable energy (RE) for the same cost as new coal and gas. In addition, 11.1 million tonnes of CO2eq emissions would be avoided. The modeling assumes a carbon price of AUD $30/tCO2. Further scenarios examine the goal of 100% renewable generation.

=== SWITCH ===