Griddle: Video Gaming for Power System Education

Abstract

The motivation and training of a proficient and diverse pool of power engineers, system operators, and policymakers is an important challenge for the electric industry. Power system experts are increasingly in demand globally to facilitate transitions to more environmentally friendly energy systems. More generally, citizens with a basic understanding of load balancing and renewable energy sources are more effective partners in increasingly complex power economies and political decisions. To address the need for an accessible general introduction to power systems, we are developing Griddle, an educational video game that introduces secondary school students to the basics of power system design, scheduling, and operation. We describe the design of Griddle's gameplay and underlying simulation, improvements made in response to user feedback, alignment with emerging teaching standards, and a high school classroom evaluation ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> = 178) of Griddle's significant transformative impact, with the goal of validating the game-based learning approach and sharing “lessons learned” with designers of related tools. We find that Griddle is effective at engaging students and presents evidence that it helps students integrate key concepts, and we identify areas where further development and study are needed.