New mechanisms in decentralized electricity trading to stabilize the grid system: a study with human subject experiments and multi-agent simulation

Abstract

The Smart grid concept has lately attracted attention because of the increase in decentralized electricity generators and the development of the information communication technology. In the Smart grid concept, mutual information exchange among suppliers and consumers can be achieved to balance and optimize the supply and demand of electricity, which is generally necessary for a grid system. Taking this background into consideration, the necessity for electricity trade by which small-scale consumers such as households buy and sell electricity is now advocated to realize further stability of the grid system. However, it is noteworthy that consumers are self-interested, which endangers the grid system stability. This study proposes new trading mechanisms applied in the electricity trade and evaluates them in terms of stability and social surplus in the market. We examine their validity using experiments with human subjects and multi-agent simulations.