HiPAS GridLAB-D Version 4.3.1 (chiba-1) is complete and has been released on GitHub. This marks the official completion of the project’s transfer to LF Energy, where the project is now known as Arras Energy.

GridLAB-D was originally developed for the US Department of Energy by a team of researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to address emerging electric power system engineering challenges associated with grid modernization. HiPAS GridLAB-D was a project funded by the California Energy Commission to upgrade GridLAB-D and make it ready for commercial use, in order to provide tools needed to respond to emerging climate change, tariff modernization, load electrification, and resilience challenges. The project has emerged as an important open source tool for utilities, researchers, and technology vendors in the development, maturation, and deployment of smart grid and renewable energy resource integration technology.

Arras Energy is available on GitHub, AWS, and Docker, and can be installed without building from source on Macs, and Windows WSL and Linux Ubuntu machines using a download/install tool at https://install.gridlabd.us/.

The project community accomplished a great deal in the last few months merging a huge volume of pull requests that were in the queue to prepare for this release. Some highlights include:

• Easy install from website
• Support for important new use-cases, including hosting capacity, resilience, tariff design, and electrification
• Updated user manuals and online tutorials.
• Improved support for Mac and Linux
• New fire danger tool
• New geodata for vegetation, ground elevation, and cable sag/sway
• Voltage, current, and power flow violation detection capabilities
• New support for historical, current, and forecast weather

Arras Energy is ready for deployment in production for research as well as utilities planning organizations, and will help increase digitalization of energy systems, improve performance of power grids, and speed integration of distributed energy resources including renewables.