DESSLib provides benchmark instances obtained by real world data for synthesis problems of decentralized energy supply systems (DESS). This paper contains information about name convention, structure and generation of the DESSLib benchmark instances. Moreover, all parameters and functions needed to describe the component models and the overall system parameters are defined. See [2] for the description of the considered optimization problem. Benchmark Instances for Synthesis of DESS DESSLib contains categorized problem instances for synthesis problems of decentralized energy supply systems based on the original real world example stated by Voll et al. (2013) [6]. The raw data is given in hourly power demand levels. In order to reduce the computational complexity, the historical data was divided into representative load cases. Those cases represent the most common loads occuring per year. Moreover the peak load demands of the thermal energy demand are added as seperate loads. Note that peak load cases have a duration of zero. Thereby, the energy system will be designed to meet all occuring energy demands. The instances are characterized by two dimensions: (i) the number of considered components in the superstructure S and (ii) the number of considered load cases L. A file representing an DESSLib instance is named, e.g., as follows: