In light of substation simulation， a component-based and flexible development mode is proposed with the virtual simu-lation engine as the kernel. The concept and architecture of the substations virtual simulation engine is described， the engine is implemented by rebuilding the Torque gaming engine using COM technology and 3D modeling. With this engine， the develop-ment of different substation simulation scenarios only need the layout of the virtual scene and simulated logic programming. Application shows that the engine can considerably improve the efficiency of substation simulation development to further popu-larize virtual reality technology in power systems.