Ten Recommendations for Engineering Research Software in Energy Research

TL;DR

This paper provides ten key recommendations to improve the quality, reproducibility, and reusability of energy research software by addressing common development challenges faced by researchers lacking formal software engineering training.

Contribution

It introduces a set of ten practical guidelines specifically tailored for energy research software development, based on expert workshops, to enhance software quality and research reproducibility.

Findings

Development of ten central recommendations for ERS.

Improved awareness of software engineering practices in energy research.

Enhanced reproducibility and reusability of energy research software.

Abstract

Energy research software (ERS) is a central cornerstone to facilitate energy research. However, ERS is developed by researchers who, in many cases, lack formal training in software engineering. This reduces the quality of ERS, leading to limited reproducibility and reusability. To address these issues, we developed ten central recommendations for the development of ERS, covering areas such as conceptualization, development, testing, and publication of ERS. The recommendations are based on the outcomes of two workshops with a diverse group of energy researchers and aim to improve the awareness of research software engineering in the energy domain. The recommendations should enhance the quality of ERS and, therefore, the reproducibility of energy research.