Understanding electricity grids and markets is critical for energy leaders to facilitate the affordable integration of renewable sources while ensuring grid stability. Knowledge of these systems helps leaders advocate for supportive policies and plan necessary infrastructure upgrades.
"Continued technological innovation and growing demand for electricity brings a lot of attention to the electric power sector. Effective management of emerging challenges and opportunities depends on deeper understanding of how technological constraints, markets, regulatory policies, past choices, federal and state laws interact with each other. This bootcamp invites students to immerse themselves in power market simulations, which enable faster learning of how these complex interactions end up affecting our current-day outcomes," said Rimvydas Baltaduonis, PhD, instructor.
At the end of January, 22 graduate students participated in a two-day Electricity Grids and Markets Bootcamp aimed at deepening their understanding of the key physical and regulatory structures that underpin the electricity industry in the U.S. Trung Dam, GR'26, a Master of Energy Transition (MET) student, reflected, "Kudos to the organizers on getting a diverse group that included Tuck, Thayer, Computer Science, and MET students. The diversity prompted deeper questions."
The workshop offered dynamic, interactive instruction on the functioning of grids and markets. The sessions covered electricity market structure, federal regulations, and principal challenges facing the industry, such as transmission interconnection and congestion.
"Taking a hands-on approach was really helpful. The first day was more analog, where we served as generators bidding into the market," said Rebecca Foulkes, GR'26. "The next day, we did a tablet-based simulation that was also beneficial."
Trung confirmed, "The gamification of the content was really helpful. We role-played as different generators with varying marginal costs, bidding into the market. We learned about the strategies clean energy generators use and the role of peaker plants, and we saw the contrasts."
The program effectively complemented all three MET courses for the term. According to Rebecca, the bootcamp content enriched her coursework in Energy Law & Policy, Energy Markets & Economics, and Data Analytics for Energy & Climate. Trung added, "In the bootcamp, we learned more about the demand side, whereas in the economics class, we focused more on the supply/generation side."
Through the bootcamp and coursework, MET students gained a thorough understanding of bidding, market dynamics, and the impacts of marginal costs on price setting, investment decisions, and market efficiency.
Students also explored advanced concepts such as Financial Transmission Rights (FTRs), which surprised Rebecca, who noted, "They [FTRs] are financial contracts that allow buyers to hedge or speculate on electricity congestion on transmission lines. You can bet on anything in this world." Trung found the FTRs so intriguing that he's pursuing a research project on them for his data analytics class final project.
All students praised the quality of the instructors and appreciated learning from industry professionals. We are grateful to Jay Matson '91, Deputy Director of the Division of Investigations at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and Rimvydas Baltaduonis, PhD, an Economics Lecturer at Stanford University and researcher at the Hoover Institution, who return to Dartmouth each year to teach through immersive simulations. They do an exceptional job making the complexities and challenges of running and regulating the grid accessible.
"It felt very digestible," Rebecca stated. "This bootcamp set me up in a strong way to have conversations about how the grid works and to share that information with others."