Showing papers on "Dynamic pricing published in 2021"

Coordinating Flexible Demand Response and Renewable Uncertainties for Scheduling of Community Integrated Energy Systems With an Electric Vehicle Charging Station: A Bi-Level Approach

Abstract: A community integrated energy system (CIES) with an electric vehicle charging station (EVCS) provides a new way for tackling growing concerns of energy efficiency and environmental pollution, it is a critical task to coordinate flexible demand response and multiple renewable uncertainties. To this end, a novel bi-level optimal dispatching model for the CIES with an EVCS in multi-stakeholder scenarios is established in this paper. In this model, an integrated demand response program is designed to promote a balance between energy supply and demand while maintaining a user comprehensive satisfaction within an acceptable range. To further tap the potential of demand response through flexibly guiding users energy consumption and electric vehicles behaviors (charging, discharging and providing spinning reserves), a dynamic pricing mechanism combining time-of-use and real-time pricing is put forward. In the solution phase, by using sequence operation theory (SOT), the original chance-constrained programming (CCP) model is converted into a readily solvable mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) formulation and finally solved by CPLEX solver. The simulation results on a practical CIES located in North China demonstrate that the presented method manages to balance the interests between CIES and EVCS via the coordination of flexible demand response and uncertain renewables.

Robust Optimal Energy Management of a Residential Microgrid Under Uncertainties on Demand and Renewable Power Generation

Abstract: Smart microgrids are experiencing an increasing growth due to their economic, social, and environmental benefits. However, the inherent intermittency of renewable energy sources (RESs) and users’ behavior lead to significant uncertainty, which implies important challenges on the system design. Facing this issue, this article proposes a novel robust framework for the day-ahead energy scheduling of a residential microgrid comprising interconnected smart users, each owning individual RESs, noncontrollable loads (NCLs), energy- and comfort-based CLs, and individual plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Moreover, users share a number of RESs and an energy storage system (ESS). We assume that the microgrid can buy/sell energy from/to the grid subject to quadratic/linear dynamic pricing functions. The objective of scheduling is minimizing the expected energy cost while satisfying device/comfort/contractual constraints, including feasibility constraints on energy transfer between users and the grid under RES generation and users’ demand uncertainties. To this aim, first, we formulate a min–max robust problem to obtain the optimal CLs scheduling and charging/discharging strategies of the ESS and PEVs. Then, based on the duality theory for multi-objective optimization, we transform the min–max problem into a mixed-integer quadratic programming problem to solve the equivalent robust counterpart of the scheduling problem effectively. We deal with the conservativeness of the proposed approach for different scenarios and quantify the effects of the budget of uncertainty on the cost saving, the peak-to-average ratio, and the constraints’ violation rate. We validate the effectiveness of the method on a simulated case study and we compare the results with a related robust approach. Note to Practitioners —This article is motivated by the emerging need for intelligent demand-side management (DSM) approaches in smart microgrids in the presence of both power generation and demand uncertainties. The proposed robust energy scheduling strategy allows the decision maker (i.e., the energy manager of the microgrid) to make a satisfactory tradeoff between the users’ payment and constraints’ violation rate considering the energy cost saving, the system technical limitations and the users’ comfort by adjusting the values of the budget of uncertainty. The proposed framework is generic and flexible as it can be applied to different structures of microgrids considering various types of uncertainties in energy generation or demand.

EIHDP: Edge-Intelligent Hierarchical Dynamic Pricing Based on Cloud-Edge-Client Collaboration for IoT Systems

Abstract: Nowadays, IoT systems can better satisfy the service requirements of users with effectively utilizing edge computing resources. Designing an appropriate pricing scheme is critical for users to obtain the optimal computing resources at a reasonable price and for service providers to maximize profits. This problem is complicated with incomplete information. The state-of-the-art solutions focus on the pricing game between a single service provider and users, which ignoring the competition among multiple edge service providers. To address this challenge, we design an edge-intelligent hierarchical dynamic pricing mechanism based on cloud-edge-client collaboration. We introduce an improved double-layer Stackelberg game model to describe the cloud-edge-client collaboration. Technically, we propose a novel pricing prediction algorithm based on double-label Radius K-nearest Neighbors, thereby reducing the number of invalid games to accelerate the game convergence. The experimental results show that our proposed mechanism effectively improves the quality of service for users and realizes the maximum benefit equilibrium for service providers, compared with the traditional pricing scheme. Our proposed mechanism is highly suitable for the IoT applications (e.g., intelligent agriculture or Internet of Vehicles), where there are multiple competing edge service providers for resource allocation.

Personalized Dynamic Pricing with Machine Learning: High-Dimensional Features and Heterogeneous Elasticity

Abstract: We consider a seller who can dynamically adjust the price of a product at the individual customer level, by utilizing information about customers’ characteristics encoded as a d-dimensional feature...

Mapping the Ethicality of Algorithmic Pricing: A Review of Dynamic and Personalized Pricing

Abstract: Firms increasingly deploy algorithmic pricing approaches to determine what to charge for their goods and services. Algorithmic pricing can discriminate prices both dynamically over time and personally depending on individual consumer information. Although legal, the ethicality of such approaches needs to be examined as often they trigger moral concerns and sometimes outrage. In this research paper, we provide an overview and discussion of the ethical challenges germane to algorithmic pricing. As a basis for our discussion, we perform a systematic interpretative review of 315 related articles on dynamic and personalized pricing as well as pricing algorithms in general. We then use this review to define the term algorithmic pricing and map its key elements at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels from a business and marketing ethics perspective. Thus, we can identify morally ambivalent topics that call for deeper exploration by future research.

Energy Management of Grid Interconnected Multi-Microgrids Based on P2P Energy Exchange: A Data Driven Approach

Abstract: Grid interconnected multi-microgrids provides potential benefits to the consumers, where the microgrids (MGs) equipped with distributed generators (DGs), energy storage systems (ESSs), and diesel generators. However, intermittency of DGs, high cost of ESSs, and depleting fossil fuels are the major challenges for the economic operation of interconnected multi-microgrids. One potential way to address these challenges is to develop an energy management strategy (EMS) for the grid interconnected multi-microgrids. This paper proposes an EMS to reduce consumer energy consumption cost (ECC) using fuzzy-based peer-to-peer (P2P) energy exchange algorithm with dynamic pricing. In this context, the MGs consumers load power demand (LPD) and DGs output behaviors are modeled using random vector functional link network approach to predict future time slot values. Then, a fuzzy-based P2P energy exchange algorithm is developed to enable the surplus energy transfer to grid and/or MGs with dynamic pricing. Furthermore, an ESS charging/discharging energy control and diesel generator turn on strategies are developed based on the MGs deficit power. Then, the MGs consumer LPD reduction strategy is implemented based on the consumer ECC margin and energy consumption index. Finally, an EMS is proposed that includes on demand-supply strategy and consumer energy consumption cost reduction strategy based on the future time slot values. The novelty of the proposed work lies within the energy management of grid interconnected multi-microgrids and the reduction of consumers ECC through surplus energy transfer to grid and/or MGs using fuzzy-based P2P energy exchange algorithm with dynamic pricing. Historical data are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed EMS for grid interconnected multi-microgrids.

Peer-to-Peer Energy Sharing With Social Attributes: A Stochastic Leader–Follower Game Approach

Abstract: Distributed energy resources bring about challenges related to the participation of an increasing number of prosumers with strong social attributes in peer-to-peer (P2P) energy sharing markets, resulting in the increased complexity of socio-technical systems. Previous research has focused on energy sharing analysis based on rational games without considering the social attributes of prosumers, which are not typically used in real scenarios. In this article, an interdisciplinary P2P energy sharing framework that considers both technical and sociological aspects is proposed. It is based on prospect theory (PT) and stochastic game theory, in which the prosumers work as followers with subjective load strategies, while an energy sharing provider (ESP) serves as the leader with a dynamic pricing scheme. A subjective utility model with risk utility (RU) determined by PT is designed for prosumers, and a profit model for dynamic prices is suggested for ESP. Moreover, a solution algorithm that consists of interpolation and curve fitting to obtain the RU function, the aggregation of prosumers to a Markov decision process, and a differential evolution algorithm to solve the game are proposed to solve the problems of the “curse of dimensionality” and discreteness arising from the social attributes of prosumers. Numerical analysis reveals the results of the Stackelberg equilibrium and demonstrates the effectiveness of this method in terms of the social behavior of prosumers, i.e., radicalness when losing and conservatism when gaining.

Meta Dynamic Pricing: Transfer Learning Across Experiments

Abstract: We study the problem of learning shared structure across a sequence of dynamic pricing experiments for related products. We consider a practical formulation in which the unknown demand parameters f...

Electricity Cost-Sharing in Energy Communities Under Dynamic Pricing and Uncertainty

Abstract: Most of the prosumers nowadays are constrained to trade only with the supplier under a flat tariff or dynamic time-of-use price signals. This paper models and discusses the cost-saving benefits of flexible prosumers as members of energy communities who can exchange electricity among peers and on the wholesale markets through a community manager. Authors propose a novel centralized post-process sharing method by introducing a two-stage mechanism which, unlike the existing methods, guarantees benefits for prosumers joining the energy community. The first stage assesses internal price calculation in three different methods: Bill Sharing Method Net (BSMN), Mid-Market Rate Net (MMRN), and Supply-Demand Ratio Net (SDRN). In their original form, prices are calculated in a single stage and the comprehensive analyses in the paper show that some members face increased cost. To solve this issue, the paper improves the methods by introducing the second stage in which the compensation methodology is defined for the distribution of savings which ensures that all community members gain benefits. Results investigate the value of inner technical flexibility of the prosumer (flexible preferences of the final consumer can reduce the cost from 3% up to 20 %). Moreover, incentives/penalties encourage the utilization of a flexible behavior to adjust the real-time consumption of prosumers’ appliances to a predefined day-ahead schedule. This type of pricing results in a lower amount of benefits sharing in the community (the reduction of 18-47% in MMRN and 49-114% in SDRN compared to existing pricing) which makes this incentives/penalties pricing more preferable. The paper concludes that prosumers with an excess PV production would not benefit from the internal energy exchange in the community under BSMN due to free energy exchange between members.

Dynamic Pricing for Electric Vehicle Extreme Fast Charging

Abstract: Significant developments and advancement pertaining to electric vehicle (EV) technologies, such as extreme fast charging (XFC), have been witnessed in the last decade. However, there are still many challenges to the wider deployment of EVs. One of the major barriers is its availability of fast charging stations. A possible solution is to build a fast charging sharing system, by encouraging small business owners or even householders to install and share their fast charging devices, by reselling electricity energy sourced from traditional utility companies or their own solar grid. To incentivize such a system, a smart dynamic pricing scheme is needed to facilitate those growing markets with fast charging stations. The pricing scheme is expected to take into account the dynamics intertwined with pricing, demand, and environment factors, in an effort to maximize the long-term profit with the optimal price. To this end, this paper formulates the problem of dynamic pricing for fast charging as a Markov decision process and accordingly proposes several algorithmic schemes for different applications. Experimental study is conducted with useful and interesting insights.

Demand-Response Games for Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading With the Hyperledger Blockchain

Abstract: In smart grids, the large-scale integration of distributed renewable energy resources has enabled the provisioning of alternative sources of supply. Peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading among local households is becoming an emerging technique that benefits both energy prosumers and operators. Since conventional energy supply is still needed to help fill the gap between local demand and supply when the local solar generation is not sufficient, demand-response management will keep playing an important role in the future P2P energy market. Blockchain and smart contract technology has gained increasing attention in P2P trading for its secure operation. The performance of blockchain-based P2P energy trading still remains to be improved, in terms of latency and cost of computation resources. This article studies the challenges of demand-response management in P2P energy trading and proposes a blockchain-empowered energy trading system for a community-based P2P market. The proposed demand-response mechanism is developed using two noncooperative games, in which dynamic pricing is applied for suppliers. The proposed energy trading system is prototyped on a cluster network, with a coordinator running as a smart contract in a Hyperledger blockchain. We implemented both on-chain and off-chain processing modes to study the system performance. The results from experiments with our prototype indicate that our proposed demand-response games have a great effect on reducing the net peak load, and at the same time, the off-chain processing mode provides lower latency and overhead compared to the on-chain mode while still keeping the same system integrity as the on-chain mode.

Smart home battery for the multi-objective power scheduling problem in a smart home using grey wolf optimizer

Abstract: The power scheduling problem in a smart home (PSPSH) refers to the timely scheduling operations of smart home appliances under a set of restrictions and a dynamic pricing scheme(s) produced by a power supplier company (PSC). The primary objectives of PSPSH are: (I) minimizing the cost of the power consumed by home appliances, which refers to electricity bills, (II) balance the power consumed during a time horizon, particularly at peak periods, which is known as the peak-to-average ratio, and (III) maximizing the satisfaction level of users. Several approaches have been proposed to address PSPSH optimally, including optimization and non-optimization based approaches. However, the set of restrictions inhibit the approach used to obtain the optimal solutions. In this paper, a new formulation for smart home battery (SHB) is proposed for PSPSH that reduces the effect of restrictions in obtaining the optimal/near-optimal solutions. SHB can enhance the scheduling of smart home appliances by storing power at unsuitable periods and use the stored power at suitable periods for PSPSH objectives. PSPSH is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem to achieve all objectives simultaneously. A robust swarm-based optimization algorithm inspired by the grey wolf lifestyle called grey wolf optimizer (GWO) is adapted to address PSPSH. GWO has powerful operations managed by its dynamic parameters that maintain exploration and exploitation behavior in search space. Seven scenarios of power consumption and dynamic pricing schemes are considered in the simulation results to evaluate the proposed multi-objective PSPSH using SHB (BMO-PSPSH) approach. The proposed BMO-PSPSH approach’s performance is compared with that of other 17 state-of-the-art algorithms using their recommended datasets and four algorithms using the proposed datasets. The proposed BMO-PSPSH approach exhibits and yields better performance than the other compared algorithms in almost all scenarios.

Dynamic Trust Enforcing Pricing Scheme for Sensors-as-a-Service in Sensor-Cloud Infrastructure

Abstract: In this paper, the problem of provisioning high quality of Sensors-as-a-Service (Se-aaS) in the presence of competitive sensor-owners, i.e., oligopolistic market, and heterogeneous sensor nodes in service-oriented sensor-cloud is studied. Oligopolistic sensor-owners adopt unfair means to degrade the quality of service provided by other sensor-owners in the sensor-cloud market. In order to address this problem, a dynamic pricing scheme, named DETER, is proposed in this work to enforce trust among the sensor-owners for maintaining the quality of Se-aaS provided by the Sensor-Cloud Service Provider (SCSP). Each sensor node calculates distributed trust opinion for other nodes, while the SCSP calculates centralized trust opinion for each sensor-owner. A Single-Leader-Multiple-Follower Stackelberg Game is formulated in which the SCSP acts as the leader and decides price to be paid to each sensor-owner, while ensuring maximum profit. On the other hand, the sensor-owners act as the followers and decide their strategies for earning maximum profit. Thereby, using DETER, SCSP enforces high trust among the sensor-owners. Additionally, using DETER, energy consumption of sensor nodes in sensor-cloud decreases by 4.69-11.56 percent, and network overhead decreases by 52.6-56.53 percent. The trade-off between price earned by the sensor-owners and profit of the SCSP in service-oriented sensor-cloud is also maintained using DETER.

Dynamic Pricing of Relocating Resources in Large Networks

Abstract: Motivated by applications in shared vehicle systems, we study dynamic pricing of resources that relocate over a network of locations. Customers with private willingness to pay sequentially request ...

Driver Surge Pricing

Abstract: Ride-hailing marketplaces like Uber and Lyft use dynamic pricing, often called surge, to balance the supply of available drivers with the demand for rides. We study driver-side payment mechanisms f...

A Comprehensive Analysis of Demand Response Pricing Strategies in a Smart Grid Environment Using Particle Swarm Optimization and the Strawberry Optimization Algorithm

Abstract: In the modern world, the systems getting smarter leads to a rapid increase in the usage of electricity, thereby increasing the load on the grids. The utilities are forced to meet the demand and are under stress during the peak hours due to the shortfall in power generation. The abovesaid deficit signifies the explicit need for a strategy that reduces the peak demand by rescheduling the load pattern, as well as reduces the stress on grids. Demand-side management (DSM) uses several algorithms for proper reallocation of loads, collectively known as demand response (DR). DR strategies effectively culminate in monetary benefits for customers and the utilities using dynamic pricing (DP) and incentive-based procedures. This study attempts to analyze the DP schemes of DR such as time-of-use (TOU) and real-time pricing (RTP) for different load scenarios in a smart grid (SG). Centralized and distributed algorithms are used to analyze the price-based DR problem using RTP. A techno-economic analysis was performed by using particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the strawberry (SBY) optimization algorithms used in handling the DP strategies with 109, 1992, and 7807 controllable industrial, commercial, and residential loads. A better optimization algorithm to go along with the pricing scheme to reduce the peak-to-average ratio (PAR) was identified. The results demonstrate that centralized RTP using the SBY optimization algorithm helped to achieve 14.80%, 21.7%, and 21.84% in cost reduction and outperformed the PSO.

Dynamic Pricing Strategy of Electric Vehicle Aggregators Based on DDPG Reinforcement Learning Algorithm

Abstract: The fixed service charge pricing model adopted by traditional electric vehicle aggregators (EVAs) is difficult to effectively guide the demand side resources to respond to the power market price signal At the same time, real-time pricing strategy can flexibly reflect the situation of market supply and demand, shift the charging load of electric vehicles (EVs), reduce the negative impact of disorderly charging on the stable operation of power systems, and fully tap the economic potential of EVA participating in the power market Based on the historical behavior data of EVs, this paper considers various market factors such as peak-valley time-of-use tariff, demand-side response mode and deviation balance of spot market to formulate the objective function of EVA comprehensive revenue maximization and establishes a quarter-hourly vehicle-to-grid (V2G) dynamic time-sharing pricing model based on deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) reinforcement learning algorithm The EVA yield difference between peak-valley time-of-use tariff and hourly pricing strategy under the same algorithm is compared through the case studies The results show that the scheme with higher pricing frequency can guide the charging behavior of users more effectively, tap the economic potential of power market to a greater extent, and calm the load fluctuation of power grid

A Smart Contract-Based P2P Energy Trading System with Dynamic Pricing on Ethereum Blockchain

Abstract: We implement a peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading system between prosumers and consumers using a smart contract on Ethereum blockchain. The smart contract resides on a blockchain shared by participants and hence guarantees exact execution of trade and keeps immutable transaction records. It removes high cost and overheads needed against hacking or tampering in traditional server-based P2P energy trade systems. The salient features of our implementation include: 1. Dynamic pricing for automatic balancing of total supply and total demand within a microgrid, 2. prevention of double sale, 3. automatic and autonomous operation, 4. experiment on a testbed (Node.js and web3.js API to access Ethereum Virtual Machine on Raspberry Pis with MATLAB interface), and 5. simulation via personas (virtual consumers and prosumers generated from benchmark). Detailed description of our implementation is provided along with state diagrams and core procedures.

Spatial-temporal pricing for ride-sourcing platform with reinforcement learning

Abstract: Ever since the emergence of ride-sourcing services, the spatial–temporal pricing problem has been a hot research topic in both the transportation and management fields. The difficulty lies in simultaneously obtaining the optimal multivariable solution for spatial pricing and sequential solution for dynamic pricing, considering the heterogeneity, dynamics, and imbalance of on-demand ride supply/demand. Due to this problem's complexity, most studies have simplified the modeling setting and omitted the complicated matching and waiting process between drivers and passengers. To go beyond the existing models, this paper proposes a reinforcement learning enhanced agent-based modeling and simulation (RL-ABMS) system to reveal the complex mechanism in the ride-sourcing system and tackle the problem of spatial–temporal pricing for a ride-sourcing platform. The reinforcement learning approach proximal policy optimization (PPO) is implemented in the RL-ABMS system, where two feed-forward neural networks are built as critic and actor. The critic judges the goodness of the current state, and the actor generates the optimal pricing strategy. Compared with the fixed pricing strategy, the experimental results on a real-world urban network show that dynamic pricing raises the platform's profit to 1.25 times, and spatial–temporal pricing even raises it to 1.85 times. Besides, the number of idle drivers/vehicles has significantly dropped under the spatial–temporal pricing strategy, which indicates that our proposed strategy has a remarkable effect on coordinating supply and demand in the ride-sourcing market.