Resource Sharing in Energy Communities: A Cooperative Game Approach

TL;DR

This paper investigates the benefits of resource sharing in energy communities using cooperative game theory, analyzing different scheduling algorithms and proposing welfare redistribution mechanisms to promote cooperation.

Contribution

It introduces a cooperative game framework for energy communities with shared DERs, proving superadditivity and balancedness under different scheduling schemes, and evaluates welfare redistribution methods.

Findings

Grand coalition maximizes welfare due to superadditivity.

Balancedness ensures fair redistribution, preventing players from leaving.

Welfare mechanisms effectively promote cooperation in simulations.

Abstract

We analyze the overall benefits of an energy community cooperative game under which distributed energy resources (DER) are shared behind a regulated distribution utility meter under a general net energy metering (NEM) tariff. Two community DER scheduling algorithms are examined. The first is a community with centrally controlled DER, whereas the second is decentralized letting its members schedule their own DER locally. For both communities, we prove that the cooperative game's value function is superadditive, hence the grand coalition achieves the highest welfare. We also prove the balancedness of the cooperative game under the two DER scheduling algorithms, which means that there is a welfare re-distribution scheme that de-incentivizes players from leaving the grand coalition to form smaller ones. Lastly, we present five ex-post and an ex-ante welfare re-distribution mechanisms and evaluate them in simulation, in addition to investigating the performance of various community sizes under the two DER scheduling algorithms.