Guided Learning
Step-by-step walkthroughs that combine explanations with a live simulator. Each scenario builds intuition for how power markets actually work.
Beginner
Core concepts — start here to build your foundation in power markets.
How SCED Works
Walk through Security-Constrained Economic Dispatch — how grid operators rank generators by cost and dispatch them in merit order to serve load at the lowest possible price.
What Are LMPs?
Understand Locational Marginal Pricing from first principles — what the price represents, why it differs by location, and how it breaks down into energy, congestion, and loss components.
Load and Generation Curves
See how electricity demand varies through the day and how generators stack up in cost order to meet it — and why the intersection of these two curves determines the hourly price.
From Monopoly to Competition
Trace the transition from vertically integrated utilities to independent power producers — how deregulation changed who builds, owns, and dispatches generation.
Intermediate
Deeper dynamics — best tackled after the beginner scenarios.
How Congestion Affects Prices
Discover why electricity prices differ by location. When transmission lines fill up, cheap power can't reach load centers — creating locational price differences called LMPs.
How Transmission Losses Affect Prices
Explore how power dissipated as heat in transmission wires creates a loss component in LMPs. The farther electricity travels, the more is lost — and the higher the price at the receiving end.
Day-Ahead vs. Real-Time
See how the RT market handles forecast errors and generator outages across a full 24-hour delivery day. The three-segment RT solver simulates load surprises and supply shortfalls, letting you compare DA and RT prices side by side.
Distributed Energy Resources
See how rooftop solar and small generators at the distribution level change dispatch patterns, suppress midday prices, and can cause reverse power flow when generation exceeds local demand.
How Renewables Change Dispatch
See how solar and wind reshape the dispatch stack — driving down mid-day prices, creating the duck curve, and challenging grid operators with variable output.
How Batteries Participate in the Market
Learn how battery storage charges when prices are low and discharges when prices are high — acting as both load and generator to earn price arbitrage.
Advanced
Financial strategies and sophisticated market participation.
How Virtual Traders Affect Prices
Explore how virtual bids (INCs and DECs) allow financial participants to arbitrage day-ahead vs. real-time price differences — and how they affect market efficiency.