Cloud Assisted IoT-Operated Small Residential Microgrid with Collusive Model Approach for Energy Trading

Abstract

This article explores a strategic approach for an energy-self-sufficient and economically sustainable small residential community, powered by rooftop solar photovoltaics. This community plays the role of a microgrid (MG) with a microgrid operator (MO). It operates in two distinct modes: within the MG (peer-to-peer or P2P) and with the utility grid. The P2P transfer is experimentally performed with open-source Internet of Things (IoT) applications from the cloud. This will enable a low-cost MG operation for developing countries. Residents from the community are elected considering their support towards community welfare, and they are considered as delegates. The MO with delegates, control the energy transfer operation. This approach distributes generated energy among community members at low prices if there is energy demand, minimizing carbon footprint. The action of selling energy by a prosumer during the need of fellow resident is considered as the token of social service towards the community. A social service counter (SSC) is chosen to identify services for each prosumer in the MG. When a seller sells energy within the community, the SSC increases. This count rewards the prosumer in several ways. MO only allows prosumers to participate in energy trading with the grid during the high-demand hours of the day. Delegates play an essential role in protecting the community's interest while selling energy outside the community. They try to form a coalition among participants to reduce installation costs and maximize the cumulative payoff. A comparative study between the proposed coordination game and two competitive game approaches, namely Cournot and Stackelberg's algorithm in the restricted domain, reveals that the proposed method is well suited for a small residential MG. Shapley value is a tool that identifies each delegate's contribution during the game. The paper employed this method for the overall coordination game to identify the most acceptable payoff for individual players.