Abstract
With the increasing interdependence among energies (e.g., electricity, natural gas and heat) and the development of a decentralized energy system, a novel retail pricing scheme in the multi-energy market is demanded. Therefore, the problem of designing a customized multi-energy pricing scheme for energy retailers is investigated in this paper. In particular, the proposed pricing scheme is formulated as a bilevel optimization problem. At the upper level, the energy retailer (leader) aims to maximize its profit. Microgrids (followers) equipped with energy converters, storage, renewable energy sources (RES) and demand response (DR) programs are located at the lower level and minimize their operational costs. Three hybrid algorithms combining metaheuristic algorithms (i.e., particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA) and simulated annealing (SA)) with the mixed-integer linear program (MILP) are developed to solve the proposed bilevel problem. Numerical results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and solution algorithms. We find that GA outperforms other solution algorithms to obtain a higher retailer's profit through comparison. In addition, the proposed customized pricing scheme could benefit the retailer's profitability and net profit margin compared to the widely adopted uniform pricing scheme due to the reduction in the overall energy purchasing costs in the wholesale markets. Lastly, the negative correlations between the rated capacity and power of the energy storage and both retailer's profit and the microgrid's operational cost are illustrated.
Recommended Citation
Q. Hong et al., "Customised Multi-Energy Pricing: Model and Solutions," Energies, vol. 16, no. 4, article no. 2080, MDPI, Feb 2023.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/en16042080
Department(s)
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Publication Status
Open Access
Keywords and Phrases
bilevel optimisation model; customised pricing scheme; metaheuristic algorithms; multi-energy market
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1996-1073
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2025 The Authors, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Publication Date
01 Feb 2023
