Qualification of Initialisation Challenges in Co-Simulation setups for Integrated Energy Systems

Co-simulation is an important tool to capture the complexity of cyber-physical energy systems. The past decade lead us from command-line simulation orchestration to higher readiness-levels in terms of applicability. The configuration and time-domain initialisation of generic co-simulation setups, however, entail a lot of manual activities, especially when simulation components are tightly coupled. This paper provides a qualitative overview on what initialisation challenges crop up and how tools like mosaik can tackle these. This is illustrated with a multi-domain co-simulation example, in which the same time loop concept is applied to resolve cyclic dependencies between simulators during initialisation. The paper provides conclusions about the applicability of same time loops for initialisation purposes and will provide directions for further research on this topic.