Player tutorial
| author: | Trevor Davis |
|---|---|
| author: | Mark Thurber |
| author: | Frank Wolak |
Contents
This document provides a high level overview of how to play the game. Please see Game concepts for more detailed info about game concepts. Please don't hesitate to send feedback on this documentation to Trevor or on the Public issue tracker.
Genco overview
You are playing a generating company (Genco) holding a portfolio of power plants capable of producing electricity which you'll aim to sell into the market via a "uniform-price" auction. You are also subject to a carbon cap and will need to cover your carbon emissions with tradeable carbon allowances or face fines. There will be three periods where you make bids to produce power via the uniform-price auction. Additionally during those three periods and a final trading-only period you will have an opportunity to trade carbon allowances. Some games may also start with a quick auction of carbon allowances.
Game overview
- Use the "Place Bids" screen to enter in the bids for the capacity of each of the generating units in your portfolio. Mingle with the other teams to try to figure out how they will bid. In more advanced games you may also trade carbon permits. Eventually your Gamemaster will ask you to stop bidding and they will increment the period. Repeat and enter in new bids unless the game is finished. You may use "Balance sheet" to track of your assets and liabilities and "View equilibrium results" to view what occurred in previous periods.
Logging into the game
Use the URL given to you by your instructor.
Explanation of tabs
Here we give a brief description of all the buttons in the Genco screen.
Auction
A tab which allows you to place bids for carbon allowances. The screen allows you to make a "bid curve" for desired allowances. Each row represents up to how many allowances you are willing to purchase for a given price. Each consecutive row should have lower prices and a higher quantity. The final row represents that you'd be willing to be given all the allowances for free.
Place bids
A screen which lets you place bids for each of your generation units. To place bids do the following steps.
- Click on the "Place bids" tab.
- Click on the blue tab for desired hour of the day.
- Enter price bids for each of your generation units (marginal cost is the default).
- Press the "Update" button.
Warning
If you fail to press the "Update" button, bids will not register!
- If the Game Master will run a day at a time, then repeat for all four hours of the day.
Carbon offers
This page allows you to propose to buy or sell carbon allowances and to accept the offers from other teams.
The first section is a form allowing you to propose to buy or sell carbon permits.
The second section shows how much cash, allowance holdings, and emissions you have.
Lists all the outstanding offers sorted by price, your outstanding offers will be blue. Select any offer you wish to purchase and click "Accept".
View equilibrium results
A screen which shows outcomes of previous rounds of the game.
View projections
Contains projections on how likely the carbon cap will be exceeded.
Game conditions
This view shows the conditions of the game such as what rules are in effect, the (estimated) demand conditions, and a link to information on the genco portfolios.