Game-Theory-Based Approach for Energy Routing in a Smart Grid Network

Small power plants and buildings with renewable power generation capability have recently been added to traditional central power plants. Through these facilities, prosumers appear to have a concurrent role in both energy production and consumption. Based on bidirectional power transfers by large numbers of prosumers, a smart microgrid has become an important factor in efficiently controlling the microgrids used in power markets and in conducting effective power trades among grids. In this paper, we present an approach utilizing the game theory for effective and efficient energy routing, which is a novel and challenging procedure for a smart microgrid network. First, we propose strategies for choosing the desired transaction price for both electricity surpluses and shortages to maximize profits through energy transactions. An optimization scheme is utilized to search for an energy route with minimum cost using the solving method used in a traditional transportation problem by treating the sale and purchase quantities as transportation supply and demand, respectively. To evaluate the effect of the proposed decision strategies, we simulated our mechanism, and the results proved that our mechanism yields results pursued by each strategy. Our proposed strategies will contribute to spreading a smart microgrid for enhancing the utilization of microgrids.