Energy Systems, Step by Step
Free interactive lessons on energy systems by Honglin Li: run a small town’s power grid, then learn what electricity costs and how to build and question optimization models, in tiers from beginner to graduate level.
One small fictional town and a power grid you run yourself. Start with a game, then climb as far as you like: from how the grid works to building and questioning your own models.
All lessons as a list
The starter path: 14 lessons across the tiers
- How does the grid keep the lights on? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- Power or energy? What is the difference between kW and kWh? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- Why does electricity demand rise and fall? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- How does the grid stay balanced every second? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- Forecasts and surprises: how do you plan for weather you can't see yet? · Foundations to Analyst · 15 min · open
- Capacity factor: why is 1 MW not always 1 MW? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- Cheap energy, firm capacity, flexibility: which plant does which job? · Foundations · 15 min · open
- What does electricity cost to make? · Analyst · 15 min · open
- Who runs, and what sets the price? · Analyst · 15 min · open
- How does storage move energy through time? · Analyst · 15 min · open
- Write it down: what are the decisions, the goal and the rules? · Analyst · 15 min · open
- Ask the solver, then check its answer · Modeler · 15 min · open
- Cheap or clean? How do you weigh cost against emissions? · Analyst · 15 min · open
- What should Prairie Town build? Plan its power system · Analyst to Modeler · 15 min · open
Foundations · L1
Explain how the power system works and reason with its numbers.
- Lesson 0How does the grid keep the lights on? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 1Power or energy? What is the difference between kW and kWh? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 2Why does electricity demand rise and fall? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 3How does the grid stay balanced every second? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 4Forecasts and surprises: how do you plan for weather you can't see yet? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 5Capacity factor: why is 1 MW not always 1 MW? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 6Cheap energy, firm capacity, flexibility: which plant does which job? · starter path · 15 min · open
- F1Who decides what, from a light switch to a nation? · 15 min · open
- F2How does everything connect? Stocks, flows, feedback and the whole-system map · 25 min · open
- F3What do people actually want from energy? · 20 min · open
- F4How do power plants turn heat, water, wind and sunlight into electricity? · 20 min · open
- F5How does a nuclear reactor make electricity, and heat? · 15 min · open
- F6How does power reach your plug, and why does it sometimes fail? · 20 min · open
- F7What is a microgrid? From a hospital that keeps its lights on to a village with no grid · 20 min · open
- F8What happens when a data center moves to town? · 15 min · open
- F9What does a city run on, and who controls what? · 15 min · open
- F10Why does every country's energy system look different? · 20 min · open
- F11What does energy do to the air, the climate and people's lives? · 20 min · open
- N1How do you read an energy headline like a researcher? · 20 min · open
- X1What engineering lies beneath the system? · 12 min · open
- X3How fast have energy transitions happened before? · 12 min · open
- CK-FFoundations checkpoint: estimate an unfamiliar situation · checkpoint · 40 min · open
Analyst · L2
Work out costs, prices and trade-offs on paper and in a spreadsheet, and read an energy study critically.
- Lesson 7What does electricity cost to make? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 8Who runs, and what sets the price? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 9How does storage move energy through time? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 10Write it down: what are the decisions, the goal and the rules? · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 12Cheap or clean? How do you weigh cost against emissions? · starter path · 15 min · open
- A1Is this project worth building? Cash flows, discounting and the cost of capital · 30 min · open
- A2Who carries the risk? Power purchase agreements and risk allocation · 25 min · open
- A3Energy-only or capacity market? How wholesale markets are designed for high renewable shares · 30 min · open
- A4How should an electricity bill be designed? Retail, dynamic and large-load tariffs · 25 min · open
- A5Will there be enough power when it matters? Resource adequacy and capacity accreditation · 30 min · open
- A6Why does it take years to connect a power plant or a data center? · 25 min · open
- A7Can demand and small resources act like a power plant? Demand response, EV charging, virtual power plants and local trading · 30 min · open
- A8How long should storage last? From batteries to seasonal stores · 30 min · open
- A9How do heat waves, droughts, wildfires and cold snaps break energy systems, and how do planners prepare? · 25 min · open
- A10Which emissions question are you asking? Inventories, consequences and procurement claims · 30 min · open
- A11What does 'clean' mean from cradle to grave? Life cycles, water and land · 25 min · open
- A12How do governments steer energy? Taxes, credits, standards and carbon prices · 25 min · open
- A13Who pays and who benefits? Energy burden, fairness and jobs · 30 min · open
- A14Does a microgrid pay off, and for whom? · 25 min · open
- A15How much can efficiency and electrification change demand? Buildings, heat, transport and industry · 35 min · open
- A16Where does hydrogen make sense? From renewables to electrolysis, storage and use · 30 min · open
- A17Will it work on the wires? Voltage, reactive power, inertia, ramps and hosting capacity · 30 min · open
- A18How is a city or regional energy plan made? · 30 min · open
- A19Where should it go? Siting with maps, from layers to a suitability score · 25 min · open
- A20Why do national energy scenarios disagree? · 25 min · open
- A21What makes a nation's energy secure? Imports, minerals, supply chains and factories · 25 min · open
- A22Cheap, clean, reliable, fair, secure: can you have them all? · 25 min · open
- B1From algebra to a linear program: how do equations become a model? · 30 min · open
- B2Python and data for energy: how do you load, plot and check a year of hourly data? · 20 min · open
- B3How do you read a formulation, and check that a model is right? · 30 min · open
- X2What happens to gas, coal and oil systems in a transition, and can carbon be removed? · 15 min · open
- X4How are energy rules made? · 12 min · open
- X5How are big energy projects actually financed? · 12 min · open
- CF1Where should a factory go when sun and wind are part of the decision? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF2When the cost per kilogram and the cost of the system disagree · case file · 10 min · open
- CF3Where should hydrogen go when nobody knows how much wind will be built? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF4Can existing reactors earn more by making hydrogen and providing grid services? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF5Where should a cogeneration study's boundary be drawn? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF6How much can shifting load to cleaner hours cut emissions, and when? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF7What does waiting for the grid cost, and who pays? · case file · 10 min · open
- CF8Learning a wind turbine's power curve from scarce data · case file · 10 min · open
- SB0Site Bench · sandbox · 20 min · open
- SB1Microgrid Workbench · sandbox · 30 min · open
- SB3City Planner · sandbox · 30 min · open
- CK-AAnalyst checkpoint: an auditable spreadsheet for a new case · checkpoint · 150 min · open
- C0Behind one meter: what should one home or one plant install? · capstone · 60 min · open
- C1Keep the campus running: a microgrid for a three-day winter outage · capstone · 90 min · open
- C3Prairie City 2040: write the city's energy plan · capstone · 150 min · open
Modeler · L3
Formulate, build, solve and critique an energy-system optimization model.
- Lesson 11Ask the solver, then check its answer · starter path · 15 min · open
- Lesson 13What should Prairie Town build? Plan its power system · starter path · 15 min · open
- M1From dispatch to locational prices: the linear program behind the market · 40 min · open
- M2On or off? Unit commitment as a mixed-integer program · 40 min · open
- M3What should be built? Capacity expansion with representative periods, validated · 45 min · open
- M4Storage and coupled carriers: modelling power, hydrogen and heat together · 40 min · open
- M5Size and run a microgrid that survives an outage · 45 min · open
- M6Putting carbon in the model: caps, prices, frontiers and procurement rules · 40 min · open
- M7What could happen? Scenarios, Monte Carlo and global sensitivity · 35 min · open
- M8Deciding before the uncertainty resolves: stochastic and robust optimization · 45 min · open
- M9Learning from few runs: surrogates, Gaussian processes and multi-fidelity data · 40 min · open
- M10Forecasting load, wind and solar with machine learning, and judging it honestly · 40 min · open
- M11Techno-economic analysis inside an optimization model · 40 min · open
- M12Model a city's energy system: an energy hub with grid limits and screening fairness outputs · 45 min · open
- M13Build a nation's pathway: a multi-region, multi-decade model · 45 min · open
- M14Did it work? Learning from data with regression and natural experiments · 40 min · open
- SB2Grid Room · sandbox · 30 min · open
- SB4Pathway Explorer · sandbox · 30 min · open
- CK-MModeler checkpoint: formulate an unseen problem, find a defect, validate a result · checkpoint · 240 min · open
- C2The Plains Grid in a hard year · capstone · 180 min · open
- C4Prairieland 2050: design and defend a nation's pathway · capstone · 240 min · open
Researcher · L4
Prepare for supervised research: design, run and communicate a study at one chosen scale, and form independent, well-founded views.
- R1What makes a question worth researching? · studio · 30 min · open
- R2How do you find out what is already known? · studio · 30 min · open
- R3Which system, which boundary, which method? · studio · 30 min · open
- R4Data you can defend: sources, cleaning, licences and provenance · studio · 30 min · open
- R5Can you trust your analysis? Verification, validation and reproducibility · studio · 35 min · open
- R6Uncertainty done properly: what to vary, how, and how to say it · studio · 30 min · open
- R7Cost and carbon done properly: one boundary, a fair baseline, a stated counterfactual · studio · 35 min · open
- R8How do you show results so people understand their limits? · studio · 30 min · open
- R9Research integrity, and working with the people your study is about · studio · 30 min · open
- R10What could you study? The question studio · studio · 40 min · open
- X6How do social scientists study energy and people? · 12 min · open
- CK-RResearcher checkpoint: defend your question and method, then revise · checkpoint · 240 min · open
- CRYour own study: from a question to a report · capstone · 60 min · open
The math toolbox
- K1Units and orders of magnitude · 10 min · open
- K2Rates and efficiencies · 10 min · open
- K3Exponentials and discounting · 15 min · open
- K4Linear equations and inequalities · 15 min · open
- K5Probability and statistics · 25 min · open
- K6Vectors and matrices: what Ax ≤ b means · 25 min · open
- K7Spreadsheets in practice · 20 min · open
- K8Git and reproducible notebooks · 20 min · open
Reference
- Regional profile cards · twelve energy systems in one structure, with dated key numbers · opened from F10
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Reference: the regional profile cards, twelve energy systems in one structure with dated key numbers. Prairie Town is fictional; every real-world number in the lessons carries a source and a date. Your guesses and progress stay in this browser. Written by Honglin Li.
Spotted an error, or stuck? Write to hlli@ksu.edu. Corrections are made in place and dated here.
Text licensed CC BY 4.0, code MIT: teachers and students may reuse and adapt it, with credit to Honglin Li.