Learning path · 20 lessons

Design a generation plant

Explain what serves the load, what limits the design, and what each delivered kilowatt-hour costs.

Start at the first lesson or jump to a question below. Each lesson has a plain explanation, a diagram you can change, and the calculation with its assumptions. No account or installation needed.

1. 01Power and energySeparate the peak in kW from the energy in kWh.
2. 02Load profiles and diversityBuild a demand curve from when customers use power.
3. 03Solar resource and weatherRead irradiance, weather years and the time basis of a resource profile.
4. 04Solar PV outputSee how sunlight, temperature and the inverter set delivered power.
5. 05Battery power and energyA battery needs both enough discharge power and enough stored energy.
6. 06Hybrid plant energy balanceFollow solar, storage and backup as they serve a day of demand.
7. 07Diesel dispatch strategiesCompare load following and cycle charging on the same demand.
8. 08Plant cost and LCOEConnect capital, operating cost and delivered energy over the project life.
9. 09Site evidence and demandSeparate mapped buildings from surveyed customers and measured demand.
10. 10Reliability and unserved energyMeasure how much demand goes unmet, and for how long.
11. 11Plant sizing and Pareto frontsFilter feasible candidates before comparing cost and reliability.
12. 12Renewable fraction and curtailmentFind why extra solar can create surplus instead of more useful supply.
13. 13Sensitivity and weather riskTest a changed assumption and compare a set of resource cases.
14. 14Tariffs, cash flow and financeConnect sales and collection to cash flow; distinguish tariff from LCOE.
15. 15Plant sizing and network checksEnergy adequacy and acceptable voltage are separate design checks.
16. 16Distribution network designFollow power from the source through feeders and service drops.
17. 17Conductor size and network costCompare voltage drop and cost while holding the route fixed.
18. 18Grid import, export and backupSee how connection limits and outages change energy exchange.
19. 19Design versions and assumptionsKeep every result tied to the inputs and assumptions that produced it.
20. 20Plant design worked exampleCompare a reproducible teaching day, then explain the next engineering checks.