Smart grids co-simulations: Survey & research directions

The integration of renewable sources, communication and power networks with information and communication technologies is one of the main challenges in Smart Grids (SG) large-scale testing. For this reason, the coupling of simulators is commonly used to dynamically simulate several aspects of the SG infrastructure, in the so-called co-simulations. In this paper, we provide a scoping review of research of co-simulations in the context of Smart Grids: i) research areas and research problems addressed by co-simulations, ii) specific co-simulation aspects focus of research, iii) typical coupling of simulators in co-simulation studies. Based on the results, we discuss research directions of future SG co-simulation research in each of the identified areas. •A scoping review classifying 82 Smart Grids (SG) co-simulation research articles.•Mapped co-simulation research to nine SG research areas (e.g. cybersecurity) 16 main simulators coupled in the case studies.•Main applications of co-simulations in the SG domain identified as load balancing, demand response programs, and energy market pricing.•Main focused areas of SG co-simulations are about reliability, grid management, network communications 59% of articles discuss hardware-in-the-loop, 25% agent-based systems, less than 10% about High Level Architecture (HLA).