Co-simulator of power and communication networks using OpenDSS and OMNeT++

Understanding the interactions between power and communication networks is becoming increasingly important, particularly in the context of Smart Grids. Therefore, simulation tools that allow the evaluation of these interactions will be vital in the near future. Co-simulators emerge as powerful alternatives that make it possible to integrate widely used power and communication network simulators. However, the process of building a co-simulator is a challenging task that involves knowledge from different areas such as power and energy systems, communication systems, and computer science. To support the development of advanced co-simulators and related studies, this paper presents the implementation details of a simple co-simulator that uses OpenDSS to simulate the power network, OMNeT++ to simulate the communication network, and a PHP Server and Python scripts to establish the interoperation of these software tools. The IEEE 4-bus test system integrated with a communication network is used to validate the implementation.

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