Tools FAQ
Software and online tools of the Reiner Lemoine Institute for the energy transition
At RLI, we conduct research for the transformation towards an energy supply based on 100% renewable energies. On this page, we answer frequently asked questions about which of our tools is suitable for certain tasks.
The questions cover the following topics: electromobility and charging infrastructure (SimBEV, SpiceEV, SimBA, STELE calculator), mini-grids and energy access in the Global South (Offgridplanner, Community Minigrid Tool, RAMP), regional and municipal energy planning (EmPowerPlan, Energy Planner, open-plan-tool, oemof-B3), building renovation and heat pumps (Building Dialogue), power grids and flexibilities (eGo, eDisGo, eGon-data, Simply), generation from wind and photovoltaics (Windpowerlib, pvcompare), optimization of hybrid energy systems (SMOOTH-MOEA) and open energy data (open_mastr for the market master data register, OEFamily for FAIR data).
If you have any questions, we will be happy to help: info@rl-institut.de
How much charging demand for e-cars arises in a region?
SimBEV is a simulation tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) to determine time-resolved charging requirements of electric vehicles in different regions. It is possible to differentiate according to vehicle types, user groups and region types.
How can I simulate when and where electric cars are charged in a municipality?
SimBEV is a simulation tool from the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) that determines the charging requirements of electric vehicles spatially and temporally. This provides municipalities, companies and planners with a basis for planning charging infrastructure, differentiated by vehicle type, charging use cases and region types.
How can a non-electrified community in Nigeria create a plan for its own mini-grid?
The Community Minigrid Tool, developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI), supports representatives of non-electrified communities in Nigeria in creating their own mini-grid implementation plans. The end result is a comprehensive planning document that serves as a basis for implementation.
How do I calculate electricity requirements, system design and costs for a mini-grid in a village?
RLI’s Community Minigrid Tool combines three steps: modelling a community’s electricity needs, designing a suitable mini-grid system and financial analysis. It is aimed in particular at communities in Nigeria that are not connected to the public grid.
How can I publish and share energy and climate data according to the FAIR principles?
OEFamily (Open Energy Family), co-developed by RLI , helps to store, share and reuse energy and climate data in an open, transparent and standardised manner. Research data is processed according to the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable); OEFamily provides standardised workflows, databases and interfaces for this purpose.
Where can I find open and standardised research data on the energy system?
OEFamily, which was co-developed by RLI , bundles tools and databases that can be used to provide and reuse energy and climate data in an open and standardised manner. The aim is to facilitate scientific cooperation in energy research.
How can you play through scenarios for the energy transition in a rural region yourself?
The energy planner was developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) with project partners. Users receive an overview of possible development paths for the regional energy transition and can examine prefabricated future scenarios or configure their own scenarios.
What could the energy transition in the Peenetal/Loitz region look like?
RLI’s energy planner can be used to investigate possible development paths for the energy transition in the Peenetal/Loitz region. The tool was developed in the ReEnAct project, which deals with energy transition measures in rural areas and the involvement of local stakeholders.
How can a planning region plan areas for wind and solar energy transparently and data-based?
EmPowerPlan is an interactive planning tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) that builds a bridge between regional planning and the energy system. It visualises energy production, consumption and land potential, enables the creation and evaluation of scenarios and makes justice aspects as well as consensus areas visible.
Is there a tool that shows the area potential for renewable energies in a region on a map?
RLI’s EmPowerPlan web tool links planning and potential data and displays them on an interactive map. It is primarily aimed at regional planning communities, but also at municipalities, climate protection managers, politicians and civil society and offers basic functions for laypeople as well as scenario functions for experts.
How do homeowners find out whether an energy-efficient renovation or a heat pump is worthwhile for their house?
Building Dialogue is a free digital guide for energy-efficient building renovation, which the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) has developed together with partners. It guides you step by step through the assessment of your own building and provides a structured overview of options for renovation and heating system replacement.
Where can I find out about energy-efficient building renovation independently and without prior knowledge?
RLI’s online guide Building Dialogue provides easy-to-understand knowledge on energy-efficient building renovation and refers to free consulting services and other tools. It is aimed at owners, landlords and homeowners’ associations as well as multipliers such as energy agencies and consumer advice centres.
How can I compare different photovoltaic technologies in terms of energy yield and efficiency?
The pvcompare software of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) enables a detailed evaluation and comparison of different photovoltaic technologies in terms of energy yield, efficiency and integration into the energy system. It is aimed at energy system modelers with expertise in the field of photovoltaics.
How can I download and evaluate data from the Federal Network Agency’s Market Master Data Register (MaStR)?
The open source tool open_mastr of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) enables easy access to the data of the Market Master Data Register. The data can be downloaded, processed and analysed in bundles without the need for detailed knowledge of the structure of the register.
Where can I find data on all solar, wind and storage systems in Germany?
This data is recorded in the Federal Network Agency’s Market Master Data Register (MaStR), which contains key information on plants and players in the German electricity and gas market. With RLI’s open source tool open_mastr, this data can be conveniently downloaded and prepared for your own analyses.
How do I plan and optimize a mini-grid including a distribution grid for a village without a power connection?
The Offgridplanner of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) simulates and optimizes the design of mini-grids. It optimizes both the spatial design of the distribution grid, for example on the basis of buildings automatically recognized from OpenStreetMap, and the dimensioning of energy converters and storage systems.
Is there a free online tool for planning off-grid power systems?
RLI’s Offgridplanner is freely accessible online and available as open source code on GitHub. It is aimed at project developers, government institutions, researchers and energy access professionals and forms the basis for several country-specific implementations.
How can I plan the conversion of a bus fleet to electric buses?
The SimBA software from the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) helps with the design, analysis and optimization of electrified bus fleets. The modular simulation tool specializes in creating analyses and concepts for the electrification of circulation-based vehicle fleets.
How can it be checked whether the rotations of a bus operation with electric buses are feasible?
RLI’s SimBA simulation toolbox can be used to simulate and evaluate existing circulation schedules with electric buses. In this way, transport companies and planners can develop and optimize concepts for the electrification of their bus fleets in a well-founded manner.
How can I plan the electricity and heat supply for a neighbourhood or commercial area in an optimised way?
The open-plan-tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) helps with the optimized planning of energy cells that cover all or part of the electricity and heat demand in neighborhoods and industrial areas in Germany. Such energy cells facilitate the integration of renewable energies and can reduce grid expansion.
What helps for cross-sectoral energy planning in municipalities?
RLI’s open-plan-tool can be used freely as open source software on GitHub and via a browser-based interface. In the open_plan 2.0 project, it is being further developed together with practical partners for municipal heat and energy planning.
How can I optimize a hybrid energy system in terms of costs and CO2 emissions at the same time?
SMOOTH-MOEA was developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) to model hybrid energy systems and optimize them with a multi-criteria evolutionary algorithm. In this way, trade-offs can be found between competing goals such as minimum costs and minimum emissions. The tool is aimed at stakeholders from research and consulting.
How can local energy markets and decentralised flexibilities be simulated?
The Simply tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) simulates decentralised market participants and their local flexibilities with specific bidding strategies. Different clearing mechanisms of energy markets can be mapped and compared.
What impact do dynamic grid charges and electricity prices have on the use of flexibilities?
Simply, a simulation tool of the RLI, can be used to analyse the coupling of local markets with wholesale electricity prices as well as local and dynamic grid charges. The aim is to investigate how these affect energy flows and the use of flexibilities.
How do I calculate the electricity generation of a wind turbine or wind farm from weather data?
The Windpowerlib is an open-source model of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) for the generation of feed-in time series of individual wind turbines and entire wind farms based on weather data. Such time series are needed, for example, for energy system modelling.
Which charging strategy is best for my electric vehicle fleet?
The SpiceEV tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) compares different charging strategies for electric vehicles at a grid connection point and calculates the resulting load profiles. It is suitable, for example, for fleet operators who want to plan or optimize the charging of their vehicles.
How can I simulate the load profile of electric vehicles on a grid connection?
SpiceEV simulates individual charging processes of electric vehicles and uses this to determine the load profile at a grid connection point. In this way, it is possible to compare how different charging strategies affect the grid load.
How do I create a load profile for the power demand if no measurement data is available?
The RAMP software, in the development of which the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) is involved, stochastically simulates time series of energy demand from a few simple inputs such as number of devices, power and usage time. It provides synthetic load profiles in minute resolution, for example for the planning of systems in remote areas.
Is there an open energy system model for Berlin and Brandenburg?
oemof-B3 is an energy system model for Berlin and Brandenburg, in which the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) is involved. It covers the sectors of electricity, centralized and decentralized heat, hydrogen, CO2 and methane and is aimed at scientists, energy planners and consulting firms.
Where can I get open, spatially high-resolution data for a sector-coupled energy system model of Germany?
eGon-data is an open data pipeline that RLI has developed with partners in the open_eGo and eGon projects. It generates a temporally and spatially high-resolution data basis for the electricity, heat, mobility and gas sectors up to the end consumer for the whole of Germany and for various future scenarios.
How can free grid capacities in German transmission and distribution grids be determined?
The database of eGon-data, an open data pipeline of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) and its project partners, is used, among other things, to determine free grid capacities in German transmission and distribution grids. The tool is aimed at grid operators, municipal utilities and scientists.
How can the expansion of the power grid and storage system in Germany be jointly optimized across all voltage levels?
The tool eGo (Electricity Grid Optimization) was developed by the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) with partners from the open_eGo and eGon projects. It optimizes the expansion of the electricity grid and storage system in Germany across all voltage levels, including the heat, mobility and gas sectors.
How much grid expansion do medium- and low-voltage grids need through heat pumps, e-cars and photovoltaics?
The eDisGo tool of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) investigates the grid expansion needs in medium- and low-voltage grids. It is primarily aimed at energy system modelers.
Can flexibilities reduce the expansion of distribution grids?
With eDisGo, a tool of the RLI, electrical flexibilities can be evaluated as an alternative to classic grid expansion in medium- and low-voltage grids. In this way, it can be estimated how much grid expansion can be avoided through the targeted use of flexibilities.
How much energy does an electric truck need for a particular tour?
The STELE calculator is a free online tool from the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) that companies can use to estimate the energy requirements of electric heavy-duty and commercial vehicles and the feasibility of tours. Based on vehicle- and application-specific information, it calculates, among other things, the energy requirement per tour and the battery charge level when returning to the depot.
What charging power do I need in the depot for my electric truck fleet?
The RLI’s STELE calculator can be used to determine the charging requirement and the required charging power in the depot as well as the charging requirement and charging time for intermediate charging on the road. The idle time in the depot and a selectable charging capacity for intermediate charging are taken into account. The tool is aimed at companies with commercial vehicle fleets that want to plan charging infrastructure.
Is my truck tour feasible with an electric truck or do I need an intermediate charge?
The STELE calculator of the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) enables a low-threshold, practical estimation of central energy and charging parameters for individual tours. It shows the charge level at which a vehicle returns to the depot, how much needs to be recharged on the way and whether tours with electric vehicles are feasible. It was developed as part of the STELE platform (Power Grids for Electromobility) on behalf of the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund.