Sharing demand-side energy resources - A conceptual design

Motivated by the recent boom of the sharing economy, this paper presents a scheme of sharing demand-side energy resources (DERs) among multiple prosumers. Successful sharing must achieve enhanced utilization efficiency of DERs and, in the mean time, ensure voluntary participation of prosumers and a sharing-enabling aggregator. It is also desirable to incentivize the adoption of DERs. To fulfill these goals, we formulate a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) for DER valuation within a sharing community. The aggregator coordinates DER operations in real-time; then it solve this MPEC problem after each billing period. In doing so, the aggregator evaluates two operating costs for each prosumer: the actual cost under coordination and the counter-factual cost if the prosumer independently traded power with the aggregator. We define the difference in these two costs as the coordination surplus, which the aggregator and the prosumer split. Simulation results demonstrate that this sharing procedure effectively achieves the aforementioned goals.