BusinessThe StorytellerIntermediate
Grid Economics and Interconnection course icon

Grid Economics and Interconnection

Like Duolingo, but for Grid Economics and Interconnection. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

79 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free during early access · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Volt-Volt the Vulture
Grid Economics and Interconnection
with Volt-Volt the Vulture
79
Levels
10
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Grid Economics and Interconnection

  • LMP reflects the cost of the next MW of energy at a specific location
  • Prices vary by node based on the cost of the marginal generator available
  • LMP as the marginal cost to serve the next increment of load
  • Energy component is uniform across the RTO if no constraints exist
  • Congestion and loss components create the price spread between nodes
  • Distinguishing the three components of LMP
  • Shadow prices indicate the system savings from expanding a constraint
  • A higher shadow price signals a more 'expensive' or critical bottleneck
  • Congestion prevents the RTO from using the absolute lowest-cost resource
  • Security-constrained dispatch must balance load using more expensive local units
  • Congestion and out-of-merit generation
  • Electricity traveling longer distances encounters more resistance and heat loss
  • Understanding shadow prices as the value of constraint relief
  • The RTO must over-generate to ensure the required MW reaches the destination
  • How congestion forces the use of out-of-merit generation
  • The impact of marginal losses on nodal pricing
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Grid Economics and Interconnection the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

The Pulse of the Grid

Picture a vast network of power lines; why do prices differ from one node to another across the RTO?

Get it right to open this lesson and 78 more in the app.

Course map

Where Grid Economics and Interconnection takes you

Master the mechanics of RTO markets, the regulatory landscape of FERC, and the technical hurdles of the interconnection queue to become a professional energy analyst.

  1. 1

    The Price of an Electron

    • Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP) Fundamentals
    • Security Constrained Economic Dispatch (SCED)
  2. 2

    Reliability and the Missing Money

    • Capacity Markets and Resource Adequacy
    • The Energy-Only Alternative: ERCOT
  3. 3

    The Interconnection Bottleneck

    • From Serial to Cluster Studies
    • FERC Order 2023 Deep Dive
  4. 4

    Queue Dynamics and Attrition

    • The Mirage of the Pipeline
    • Network Upgrades and Cost Allocation
  5. 5

    Regulatory Power and FERC Oversight

    • FERC Section 206 vs. Rulemaking
    • The 2026 Show Cause Orders
  6. 6

    The Jurisdictional Seam

    • Federal vs. State Authority (FPA)
    • Load Interconnection and the Retail Gap
  7. 7

    Large Load Strategies

    • Non-Firm Service and Curtailment
    • Behind-the-Meter (BTM) Integration
  8. 8

    Corporate Procurement and Basis Risk

    • VPPA Mechanics and Basis Risk
    • Physical and Sleeved Delivery
  9. 9

    The Path to 24/7 Clean Energy

    • Annual vs. Hourly Matching
    • The Cost of the Last 30%
  10. 10

    The Analyst's Professional Standard

    • Building a Robust Methodology
    • Defending the Model (The Red Team)

10 sections · 20 units · 79 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

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This course
The Storyteller

Grid Economics and Interconnection is taught in the The Storyteller style: every lesson is a story. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

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