Demand Response Management With Multiple Utility Companies: A Two-Level Game Approach

TLDR

Demand Response Management reduces peak load and variation in the smart grid. This study investigates DRM in a multi‑utility setting, unlike prior single‑utility analyses. The authors model the interaction as a two‑level game—a non‑cooperative game among utilities and an evolutionary game among users—and implement the strategies with distributed algorithms. They prove convergence to equilibrium and demonstrate that the scheme significantly reduces peak load and demand variation.

Abstract

Demand Response Management (DRM) is a key component of the future smart grid that helps to reduce power peak load and variation. Different from most existing studies that focus on the scenario with a single utility company, this paper studies DRM with multiple utility companies. First, the interaction between utility companies and residential users is modeled as a two-level game. That is, the competition among the utility companies is formulated as a non-cooperative game, while the interaction among the residential users is formulated as an evolutionary game. Then, we prove that the proposed strategies are able to make both games converge to their own equilibrium. In addtion, the strategies for the utility companies and the residential users are implemented by distributed algorithms. Illustrative examples show that the proposed scheme is able to significantly reduce peak load and demand variation.