Enforcing Fairness in Autonomous Peer-to-Peer Energy Hub Trading

Abstract

Energy hubs are multi-carrier energy systems that incorporate generation, conversion, and storage technologies. They are gaining increasing relevance in the energy sector due to their ability to match local production with consumption, incorporate renewable energy sources and increase the flexibility of supply. We investigate autonomous peer-to-peer trading between energy hubs to further optimize the energy usage within the network, while also ensuring all hubs are compensated in a fair manner. In order to do this, we construct a bi-level game for the peer-to-peer energy trading problem. At the lower-level, a trading game is defined where the hubs minimize their production costs while satisfying operating constraints. At the higher level, mediators determine fair prices for each trade based on a chosen fairness metric. Algorithms to solve both levels of the problem are derived and numerical results are provided. It is also proven, that the obtained trading prices cannot result in any hub being negatively affected by participating in the trading network. In addition, issues and possible adaptations of the problem for a receding-horizon implementation are explored.