Welcome, Third TOP-Energy® Generation

TOP-Energy® 3.0 Is Out Now.

The TOP-Energy® software for time-based simulation and optimization of complex energy systems is now available in its third generation after a comprehensive relaunch.

Enjoy the new features! Working with the software is now even easier, more convenient, and more comfortable.

Test the new TOP-Energy® generation with its numerous new features!

Standard Tool for
Energy System Optimization

The TOP-Energy® software for energy system optimization has already been developed for many years at GFaI in the research division Graphical Engineering Systems, Graphing for short.

The Graphing research division has been headed by Dr. Stefan Kirschbaum since September 2020, following the move of long-time division head Gregor Wrobel to the management of GFaI. Stefan Kirschbaum has played a leading role in the development of TOP-Energy® from the very beginning. The development history of TOP-Energy® goes back to 2003 and begins with a research project at RWTH Aachen University.

Today, TOP-Energy® is established on the market as a standard tool for energy system optimization. It is capable of mapping the complex conditions of the energy market and taking them into account in the optimization.

Even More Ease of Use

The main focus of TOP-Energy®’s program development has always been ease of use. The new generation of TOP-Energy® goes a big step further in this direction: To meet the high expectations of users, the user interface has been redesigned.

It is now operated via ribbons – menu ribbons that display the functions and commands contextually.

TOP-Energy® is distinguished by its easy-to-use graphical workspace on which the components of the energy system are arranged as symbols and linked to each other by networks to form a scheme.

There are some innovations here as well: The symbols were redesigned, manual routing of the nets is now possible, and the controls can be moved to their own schemes. In this way, extremely complex systems can be represented clearly.

 

 

New Functions

Approximately 200 components for modeling energy supply systems are available in the component template libraries. In addition to technical components, these include tariff components for economic calculation and control components for detailed mapping of individual operating modes. The flexibility to add optional parameters and operating conditions to the dynamic components is due to TOP-Energy® 3.0’s structure of elementary components, the so-called Elementarys. This keeps the parameterization clear and the model lean. A new validation function helps to avoid errors in the model at an early stage.

One of the decisive improvements is the significantly higher computing speed. The time series analysis functions integrated in TOP-Energy® allow operational optimization even for coupled systems in real time. Geographical location data and weather data are conveniently integrated via the master data module with its interfaces to OpenStreetMap and the DWD (German Meteorological Service). A time series preview integrated into the user interface of TOP-Energy® enables the fast time-related analysis of complex data without having to start the included time series editor ETA. ETA stands for Engineering Time Series Analyzer, a comprehensive software tool also developed and distributed by GFaI’s Graphing research unit. With TOP-Energy® 3.0, ETA also appears in a new design and with new functions.

For a comprehensive overview of all the new features of TOP-Energy® 3.0, click here.