Computer-Assisted Interactive Learning for Teaching Transmission Pricing Methodologies

This paper presents a computer-assisted method to teach and understand transmission pricing techniques. The education method is facilitated by specially designed user-friendly transmission pricing software (TPS). The proposed approach helps students fully understand transmission pricing through the fulfillment of the following educational objectives: 1) use of TPS to solve the transmission pricing problem of a small power system as well as a real-world power system; 2) complete understanding of the mathematics involved and development of software code to reproduce part of the results of TPS; 3) analysis of the results, identification and justification of the differences among three transmission tracing techniques and eight transmission cost allocation methods; and 4) extension of TPS methodologies. These methods have been proven effective in the education of students studying power system economics at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece. A full-fledged, robust, comprehensive study of the educational improvements achieved through the use of TPS is provided.