Lets say for simplicity that you as the power company have a monopoly on your area, so that we can abstract away the challenges inside your zone
Then, you have zones around you (it'd be awesome if each scenario grabbed historically and locally accurate transmission info), perhaps defined as 1-6 connected regions, with a set amount of transmission capacity
Then, your levers as a player are: (perhaps this is a new tab)
Buy and sell electricity with each region
Each region should be willing to either buy or sell a certain quantity of electricity at a certain price (or, more accurately, a curve, e.g. the more you buy/sell, the less valuable it becomes).
This will also be constrained by transmission infrastructure, which is not a Boolean / hard limit - the hotter the temperature, the less current lines can support due to sagging (TODO research what's the drop, ideally simplified to a -x% per degree C above y temperature)
TODO: BIG UI question: How to do this? Buying/selling electricity is an ongoing concept, so it's not a page you can go to and click "sell" when you have spare capacity. It's almost like you need a rules engine, sell to the highest buyer when you have spare capacity, buy from the lowest seller when you have a capacity gap... But then players will definitely want tools to debug (for example, seeing how much of their current supply/demand/income/cost is going to/from trading, forecasts on trading pricing and availability, indications when your trading is constrained by transmission capacity)
TODO: research simplified factors of how we can calculate adjacent region's quantity and price
Upgrade transmission infrastructure
Like generation facilities, should have a sliding scale with how much capacity you'd like to add, and the resulting cost + time to build.
UI can probably be similar to existing list of generators; perhaps there's a high level list of all regions, then when you click one region, you see the specific transmission lines (having the concept of specific lines would then allow us, for example, to have events where a specific line goes out of commission)
TODO: research needed on factors that influence the cost and timeframes for transmission construction
Buy and sell electricity with each region
Each region should be willing to either buy or sell a certain quantity of electricity at a certain price (or, more accurately, a curve, e.g. the more you buy/sell, the less valuable it becomes).
This will also be constrained by transmission infrastructure, which is not a Boolean / hard limit - the hotter the temperature, the less current lines can support due to sagging (TODO research what's the drop, ideally simplified to a -x% per degree C above y temperature)
TODO: BIG UI question: How to do this? Buying/selling electricity is an ongoing concept, so it's not a page you can go to and click "sell" when you have spare capacity. It's almost like you need a rules engine, sell to the highest buyer when you have spare capacity, buy from the lowest seller when you have a capacity gap... But then players will definitely want tools to debug (for example, seeing how much of their current supply/demand/income/cost is going to/from trading, forecasts on trading pricing and availability, indications when your trading is constrained by transmission capacity)
TODO: research simplified factors of how we can calculate adjacent region's quantity and price
Upgrade transmission infrastructure
Like generation facilities, should have a sliding scale with how much capacity you'd like to add, and the resulting cost + time to build.
UI can probably be similar to existing list of generators; perhaps there's a high level list of all regions, then when you click one region, you see the specific transmission lines (having the concept of specific lines would then allow us, for example, to have events where a specific line goes out of commission)
TODO: research needed on factors that influence the cost and timeframes for transmission construction