About GridTradingDesk

Why this exists, who built it, and what it's honestly trying to be.

This is a learning tool, dressed up as a game

GridTradingDesk started from a simple frustration: the way electricity is actually priced in Great Britain — merit order, clearing prices, a balancing mechanism working in real time to keep supply and demand matched — is genuinely interesting, but almost nobody outside the industry understands how it works. Reading about it is dry. So instead, you run it: you own UK Energy Co, a fictional power business, and you trade, schedule and optimise a real fleet of coal, gas, wind, solar, hydro and battery assets against a market that behaves like the real one, because it's modelled on the real one.

The goal was never to build "a real energy company simulator" for its own sake — it's to make the mechanics behind your electricity bill, and behind the news stories about gas prices and grid constraints, click into place. If you finish a session and merit order or a clearing price makes sense in a way it didn't before, it's done its job.

Who's behind it

GridTradingDesk is built and run by Pacedall Labs Ltd, a small, independent technology studio registered in England and Wales (Company No. 16619412, registered office 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ). It's a solo-built, solo-maintained product — which is part of why it stays deliberately small and honest about what it is rather than chasing every feature at once.

What's real, what's not

UK Energy Co and everything that happens to it is fictional. The pricing mechanism underneath it is real — a genuine merit-order market, the same way GB's actual electricity market clears. Some modes go further and use real, publicly published grid data (see the FAQ for the specifics). None of it is financial or trading advice, and none of it involves real money beyond the subscription itself.

What's next

No fixed roadmap with dates — this is a solo-built product and features ship when they're ready, not on a schedule. What's actually in progress right now: making the real GB grid data more visible while you play (not just on the homepage), a smoother first few minutes for new players, and a proper mobile layout for trading on the go. Longer term ideas — a shareable certificate of completion, a proper career-focused track — are on the list but not started; nothing about pricing or the core game is changing in the meantime. Recently shipped: a biomass plant, a "Why this price?" panel that shows how the merit order set each half-hour's price, short "why this happened" explainers, and a methodology page on where the data comes from. Next on the list is demand response.

Say hello

This is actively being built, one round of feedback at a time. If something's confusing, broken, or missing, or you just want to say what you'd change, it goes straight to the person building it — see below.