Small-Scale Renewable Energy Source Trading: A Contract Theory Approach

Abstract

Energy informatics is expected to be significant to improve energy trading efficiency. In this framework, the cooperation among small-scale electricity suppliers and the efficient economic incentives to consumers play important roles to maximize the profits of each small-scale electricity supplier and a single aggregator. The aggregator first collects electricity from the suppliers and/or purchases electricity from the main macrogrid, then sells the electricity to the consumers. A coalitional game model in the presence of direct trading among suppliers is presented and a fair revenue division scheme based on the asymptotic Shapley value is derived. Moreover, an optimal contract-based scheme for electricity trading between the aggregator and consumers is proposed. The scheme enables the aggregator to generate more profits when it is for-profit and preferably supports it to serve all consumers when it is non-for-profit.