Open-source software projects for advancing the power systems analysis

Open-source software projects are proliferating around the internet as a response for solving research and industry questions. These types of projects open the door for bringing together specialists around a topic, empowering them to be able to make changes on a software tool they rely on. These changes can go from attending customized needs to cover global or generic problems that have not been addressed by the specialized software industry yet. This paper discussed how EPRI’s Open-source distribution system simulator OpenDSS has been used for more than 10 years for evolving the power system simulation techniques, as well as a vehicle for sharing research results with the industry and academia worldwide.