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Energy systems / An interactive explainer
Same physics.
Different missions.
Homes, factories, grid plants and data centers all balance power and energy. What changes is the job, the connection, and the decisions behind every charge.
Independent education • Synthetic scenarios • Not system design or investment advice
01 / Follow the energy
Conceptual AC-connected arrangement, not a wiring diagram. Click a component. Branches connect to a common AC bus. Dashed blocks show supervision or separately engineered continuity functions, not a simulated power path.
Go deeper: connection and control boundaries
02 / Size is not one number
How fast, and for how long?
Power is a rate. Energy is a quantity. A battery’s energy-to-power ratio is a useful nominal duration, not a promise of backup runtime.
Three scale families: residential kW/kWh; commercial/industrial MW/MWh; large utility or data-center MW–GW / MWh–GWh. These are navigation examples, not universal size definitions.
Reserve is a model floor: the controller will not discharge below it, including during the simplified outage. Nominal capacity is constant; ageing and temperature are omitted.
Show the arithmetic and assumptions
Let η = √(round-trip efficiency). For interval duration Δt, stored-energy change is ΔE = Pcharge × η × Δt − Pdischarge ÷ η × Δt. Here Δt = 1 hour. All power values are AC-bus values. Real ratings and usable windows depend on the manufacturer and system boundary.
03 / Operate the system
Run a fictional day.
Hourly steps; one selected day, not a weather forecast. No tariff, carbon, revenue or optimal-sizing calculation.
Inspect all 24 records and energy balance
Go deeper: why the controller chose that action
Data-center role explorer / Separate from the hourly model
Who carries the protected load?
This fictional functional sequence assumes successful equipment operation and coordinated controls. It is not a design, a universal topology or a reliability prediction. No transfer times are asserted.
The UPS energy reservoir is separate from the facility BESS simulated above. Neither capacity is counted twice.
Different scales / Different obligations
Compare any two systems.
Select independent teaching scenarios. Choose a default fictional day or capture the current simulator settings as an independent snapshot. Snapshots stay fixed until explicitly refreshed, so you can compare two custom configurations. Equal duration does not mean equal purpose or reliability.
A data-center campus is a large customer load, not inherently a utility generator. Facility BESS, UPS and standby generation are distinct roles. No size label guarantees backup or grid-service eligibility.
04 / Choose the mission
These selections explain different purposes. They do not change the dispatch policy in the day simulator above.
05 / A system is more than cells
From objective to end of life.
Capacity fade: an assumption, not a forecast.
Change a fictional annual retention factor and see why lifetime performance cannot be inferred from nameplate energy alone.
Teaching equation: remaining fraction = annual retention ^ years. Not a warranty, cycle-life model or chemistry comparison; omits calendar/cycle interaction, augmentation and power changes.
06 / Trace the claims
Sources, methods and boundaries.
Public sources support the concepts. They do not validate the fictional sizes, profiles, dispatch policy or economics of this demonstrator. Sources rechecked November 13, 2026.
What this teaching model excludes
No electrical protection, fault-current, arc-flash, grounding, fire spacing or installation instructions. No battery thermal/electrochemical model, islanding controller, power-quality study, voltage/frequency dynamics, interconnection approval or warranty validation. No real site, proprietary design or Dan-specific project claim. Safety requires qualified design, applicable codes and authority review, not this page.
Find a term
Independent educational explorer by DGE Projects. Synthetic examples; no employer or agency endorsement. Not engineering, installation, financial or emergency guidance.