We make energy strategy playable

TBA Energy Game helps participants move from abstract policy arguments to concrete decisions. Teams experience how energy systems connect economics, infrastructure, public trust, and transition pressure.

Profile: LinkedIn

Leadership

Rick Payne

Owner, TBA Energy

Rick Payne is the owner of TBA Energy and brings nearly four decades of energy leadership to the company’s simulation work. His background spans operations on Alaska’s North Slope, technology development in Texas, and international leadership roles in Venezuela and Peru with ARCO and BP.

He co-founded Foundation Energy in 2005 and later served as president of Foundation Renewable Energy Co. until 2024. Today, his work connects practical energy experience with education, systems thinking, and the real-world tradeoffs behind available, affordable, and safe energy.

B.S. Chemical Engineering, The University of Tulsa; M.S. Chemical Engineering, Oklahoma State University; MBA, Southern Methodist University.
Co-founded Foundation Energy, an institutionally funded oil and gas company with renewable-energy investment experience.
Named director of The University of Tulsa Center for Energy Studies in 2026; now owner of TBA Energy.

Strategic

Cabinet-level choices instead of engineering homework.

Transparent

Players can explain why their score moved.

Professional

Built for classrooms, workshops, and energy-business discussion.

Design method

Research-backed, but still playable

The simulation is designed around strategic clarity: players should understand why the model responds, while still feeling the pressure of uncertain markets and competing stakeholders.

Transparent assumptions

The model exposes the core formulas behind generation, billed energy, retail price, reserve margin, losses, and macro feedback.

Human tradeoffs

Players negotiate, defend decisions, and learn why affordability, reliability, investment, and trust cannot be solved in isolation.

Professional facilitation

Briefings, event cards, dashboards, and debriefs make the experience useful for classrooms, workshops, and stakeholder sessions.

Ethical realism

Illegal connections are modeled through affordability, service quality, metering, governance, and community trust, not as a flat penalty.

Powering Play With Purpose. Immersive simulation for energy markets, policy, and strategy.

Email: inquire@energytba.com

Navigation

Connect

Start A Brief

Talk to us about the audience, goals, timeline, and scenario focus.