Electricity Markets & the Power Grid: Load Curves, Merit-Order Dispatch, Reserve Margins & Wholesale Prices
See how a power system clears: load curves, plant marginal costs, the merit order, renewable feed-in and reserve margins, with every cell checked as you go.
One-time payment · lifetime access · lessons, labs, exam and certificate included · no subscription.
About this course
In this course you run the weekly report of a fictional power pool in a live spreadsheet. You turn hourly demand into peak, average, load factor and a load-duration curve, convert installed MW and capacity factors into an energy mix, and build each plant's marginal cost from fuel, efficiency, carbon price and O&M. You rank the offers into a merit order, find the clearing price, subtract wind and solar to price the residual load, and test adequacy with firm capacity, reserve margin and an N−1 stress day. You finish with inframarginal rent, the solar capture price, emissions intensity, a price-duration curve and a mix chart.
Lessons
- Load Curves: Peak, Average, Load Factor & the Load-Duration Curve Pro
- The Generation Fleet: Capacity, Availability, Capacity Factor & Energy Mix Pro
- Marginal Cost: Fuel, Efficiency, Carbon Price & Variable O&M Pro
- Merit-Order Dispatch: Ranking Plants and Finding the Clearing Price Pro
- Wind & Solar Feed-In: Residual Load and the Clearing Price Hour by Hour Pro
- Resource Adequacy: Firm Capacity, Reserve Margin & Shortfall Hours Pro
- Generator Economics: Inframarginal Rent and the Capture Price of Solar Pro
- Market Dashboard: Price-Duration Curve, Energy Mix & Emissions Intensity Pro