Dominion Power Play
Use the power of simulation to predict the future
Design presentation CS 410 –Black Team October 20th 2016
Team Black
Team Mentor: ’Max’ Siangchokyoo
Addy Alago
David Hescheen
Jack Elder
Nathapon ‘Max’
Siangchokyoo
Nick Benfield
Ryan Rusnak
Stephanie Zeil
Trai Corte
The Customer
Dominion Power
Dominion power needs a better way to analyze decisions and their impacts on specific regions before
those decisions need to be made
The system will be used by:
• Dominion Power decision makers
• Analysts
• Players
Our solution can be adapted for other industries with similar needs
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• Decisions need to be made in response to events
affecting regional power plants.
• Results of decisions can take years
• Adjusting decisions a reactive, instead of proactive
process
• Wrong decisions cost time and money
The Problem
Current Process Flow
5
6
Other Challenges
Decisions come with different
perils
Takes Time
Testing Difficult
Results can take
Live environment
decades
testing impossible
$
Costly
Expensive and hard to
reverse
$
Mistakes
Can Be Disasterous
Manpower
Fear Not
Requires an entire
A solution is possible
team to research
problem
To Build or Not To Build
$1080
Gas
$5098
$6108
Coal
Nuclear
Cost of building a power plant per MW
• Decisions about building or retiring a plant can be
influenced by many factors and have long term rippling
effects.
• A plant not built today may put you behind tomorrow.
• A
plant
not
unprofitable.
decomissioned
today
may
become
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Our Solution
Dominion Power Play
Web Based Simulator
www.dominionpowerplay.com
• Users will play the role of CEO.
• Players
presented
with
realistic
scenarios.
• Decisions on resource allocations will
affect simulated outcomes.
• Outcomes will be studied and applied to
real life scenarios.
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Our Solution
Players will be given scenarios:
• New legislation passed
• Cost of resources (gas, coal) spikes or
drops
• Incoming natural disasters
• Others can be added to simulations
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Our Solution
Planning phase
• Players prepare for the scenario by
making changes to power plants in
various regions
• Variables such as production levels,
operating hours, retirement date etc
can be set
• Informative
read
only
variables
presented to player to aid planning
10
Simulation Phase
• Variables are pushed to the simulation engine
• Outcomes are simulated and presented to
player
• New data and new simulations fed into Web
interface for next round
12
Reporting
Learning from simulations
Analytics
Reporting and Analytics will be available to show different metrics and outcomes with each simulation.
Best outcomes can be studied and implemented in production environments without spending time
and energy.
Potential pitfalls can be avoided by seeing what issues are simulated.
76%
89%
Plant Uptime
Plant Uptime
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Our Process Flow
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Major Functional Components
 Simulation Engine models and
simulates power plant behavior.
 SQL server pushes and pulls game
variables to and from front end and
simulation engine
 Web based front end houses the
game
 Players can play on mobile or pc
browser
 Analysts can view reporting and
outcomes based on simulations.
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We are building something truly unique
Our Competition:
Cities
Skylines
Sim City
Series
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Power Play
Customizable
scenarios
Easily
modified
Focus on one
industry
Able to model
decision
making
Reporting
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Kairosoft
Story Games
Limitations
What Won’t Our Solution Do?
Will not analyze results.
Will not provide real time gameplay
Will not model without user input
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