A review of multi-energy system planning and optimization tools for sustainable urban development

Implementing renewable energy resources to enable sustainable development of cities, requires a more flexible and re-silient energy system than currently present. Integrating multiple energy carriers and services allow more efficient implementation of these renewables. Although most research efforts so far have focused on the electricity grid, multi-energy systems attract ever more attention. Over the last decades, a wide variety of energy tools has been developed; potentially providing a solid basis to build upon. This paper reviewed those tools specifically able to model multi-energy systems and applicable to a city scale. 13 (of 72 total) are able to and were further analyzed. Challenging is to incorporate short- and long-term dynamics of an energy system. Although some tools combine planning and operational methods, none are able to model solutions that are practically feasible from a grid perspective. Future research aims to integrate the tools re-viewed here with power system simulation models.