Consumer flexibility aggregation using partition function games with non-transferable utility

This paper explores the aggregation of electricity consumers flexibility. A novel coalitional game theory model for partition function games with non-transferable utility is proposed. This model is used to formalize a game in which electricity consumers find coalitions among themselves in order to trade their consumption flexibility in the electricity market. Utility functions are defined to enable measuring the players preferences. Two case studies are presented, including a simple illustrative case, which assesses and explains the model in detail; and a large-scale scenario based on real data, comprising more than 20,000 consumers. Results show that the proposed model is able to reach solutions that are more suitable for the consumers when compared to the solutions achieved by traditional aggregation techniques in power and energy systems, such as clustering-based methodologies. The solutions found by the proposed model consider the perspectives from all players involved in the game and thus are able to reflect the rational behaviour of the involved players, rather than imposing an aggregation solution that is only beneficial from the perspective of the aggregator.This work was supported in part by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme through project DOMINOES under Grant 771066, in part by the FEDER Funds through COMPETE program, and in part by the National Funds through FCT under Project CEECIND/01811/2017 and Project UID/EEA/00760/2019