A Suite of Tools

Our microgrid research group at the Naval Postgraduate School is actively developing a suite of open-source web and offline tools designed to assist with the early stages of microgrid planning. Our technology stack includes Python, MySQL, SQLite, Flask, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, HTML, CSS, and Docker. We are distributing our codebase as open-source software for two reasons: (1) allow others in the scientific community to deploy microgrid planning methods that would otherwise be purely methodological research endeavors, due to a lack of resources to develop the infrastructure required for deployment; and (2) encourage others to contribute to the future development of our suite of tools. We welcome both feedback and collaboration opportunities.

About

The Open-Source Microgrid Planning Tools are under development. See the Release Notes below for information on current features. Additional features planned for release in upcoming updates include

• Weather data to enable user-specified locations for solar and wind models (web)
• Job queuing to enable computationally intensive algorithms (web)
• Enhanced methods for distributed energy resource sizing (web + offline)

Research Team

The core faculty team at Naval Postgraduate School contributing to methods for our Open-Source Microgrid Planning Tools includes

• Ron Giachetti, Systems Engineering
• Giovanna Oriti, Electrical Engineering
• Daniel Reich, Operations Research
• Susan Sanchez, Operations Research
• Douglas Van Bossuyt, Systems Engineering

Sponsors

Our sponsors include

• Office of Naval Research through the Energy System Technology Evaluation Program (ESTEP) and Next System Technology Evaluation Program (NextSTEP)
• Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) through the Navy Shore Energy Technology Transition and Integration program (NSETTI)
• Director of Operational Energy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy (DASN-OE)
• Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) through the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the NASA Systems Engineering Research Consortium (NASA Consortium)

Partners

Our partners include

• Bill Anderson, Rob Nordahl, Chris Baboghli - NAVFAC EXWC
• Antonino Piluso - NAVFAC EURAFCENT

Software Contributors

The Open-Source Microgrid Design Planning software was developed by

• Daniel Reich, author
• Leah Frye, JavaScript, HTML and CSS contributor
• Hyatt Moore, JavaScript and MySQL contributor

with contributions from

• Bruce Chiarelli, Docker contributor and deployment lead
• Jeff Haferman, Naval Postgraduate School High-Performance Computing support

Release Notes

Version 0.0 - November 2021

• Simulation with parameter inputs for one diesel generator, one photovoltaic system, one wind turbine and one battery energy storage system (web + offline)
• Simulation with parameter inputs for multiple diesel generators, photovoltaic systems, wind turbines and battery energy storage systems (offline)
• Distributed energy resource sizing method for one diesel generator, one photovoltaic system and one battery energy storage system (offline)

Version 1.0 - March 2023

• User accounts with authentication (web)
• User-defined components for diesel generators, photovoltaic systems, wind turbines and battery energy storage systems (web)
• User-defined grids (web)
• Upload and storage of powerload data (web)
• Integration of Version 0.0 simulation methods with user-defined grids and powerload data (web)
• Simulation method for measuring resilience of user-defined grids, using user-defined disturbance probabilities and repair times (web + offline)
• Data farming method for performing sensitivity analysis on grids (offline)

Version 1.1 - September 2023

• Updated GUI
• Refactored code with improved organization and efficiency