Requirements for Smart Grid simulation tools

Due to the ongoing changes in the power systems and their evolution towards Smart Grids they will become tremendously complex. Those systems will contain many different components and actors that are connected among each other and located on different technological as well as conceptual levels. Analyzing the influences and impacts of new components or changes of parameters becomes more and more challenging. For that reason the importance of simulation is continuously increasing. However, Smart Grids impose new requirements on supporting tools that today's technologies are no longer suitable for. In this paper such requirements from selected Smart Grid use cases and projects are analyzed and discussed.