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Energy management system (EMS) design has traditionally been a top-down process, in which a single vector provides the algorithms, software, and hardware to meet the utility's functional specifications. Trends in power systems, such as the move by utilities to open systems architectures, and the development of distributed computing systems indicate that this process must be changed to incorporate the new expertise required in EMS design. An open design approach is proposed to accomplish this. The design approach is based on decomposing the EMS design problem according to different levels of abstraction. The authors define the components of this decomposition and discuss their relationships. These components form the conceptual design for a CAD simulation package which is being developed at UC Berkeley to evaluate and compare the performance of alternative designs.< >