Title: Agent-based modelling of coalition formation in energy micro-grids

Authors: Muhammad Yasir; Martin Purvis; Maryam Purvis; Bastin Tony Roy Savarimuthu

Addresses: Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand ' Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand ' Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand ' Department of Information Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

Abstract: In micro-grids energy is generated and consumed locally from intermittent renewable energy sources. Because of energy variability, sometimes there are energy surpluses and sometimes deficits. The ill effects of intermittency can be reduced by trading energy by means of a connected electricity grid. This work introduces an alternative solution by forming coalitions among micro-grid communities, since mainline electricity grids are subject to faults and outages. These coalitions can withstand power outages by sharing energy among them. We present a model for dynamic micro-grid coalition formation and demonstrate that the model is scalable and preserves the autonomy of individual micro-grids by enabling them to join and depart from a coalition. Our empirical studies demonstrate that our model reduces overall 'discomfort' (a notion defined in the paper), so that even when all participating micro-grids in a coalition experience deficits, they can share energy so that their overall discomfort is minimised.

Keywords: renewable energy; multi-agent systems; coalition formation; micro-grids.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAOSE.2017.087639

International Journal of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, 2017 Vol.5 No.4, pp.399 - 432

Received: 09 Mar 2016
Accepted: 03 Feb 2017
Published online: 30 Oct 2017 *

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