TerraWatts is a game that educates people on renewable energy generation sources by bridging the gap between economics and environmental science through simulation. We use a combination of Python and MATLAB to create plausible and realistic simulations for different renewable energy sources.
In short, the game is about picking the economically and environmentally efficient energy generation systems to meet the customer’s demand with different constraints and environmental factors.
We have a grid of different terrains that are suitable for different energy systems, such as solar panels and water turbines. Each tile in the grid can hold one of these energy systems at a time, with options to buy new systems and sell old systems. After a set amount of game time, the year will update with the revenue and energy generated amounts from that year.
We found the numbers for renewable energy outputs by modeling the mechanical system using MATLAB’s Simulation features, and creating equations that represent the output of these mechanical systems with respect to factors like wind speeds for wind turbines. This was one of our biggest challenges as deriving equations from graphs and figuring out what we wanted as inputs and outputs was very challenging.
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