A Software Agent Framework for Exploiting Demand-Side Consumer Social Networks in Power Systems

This work introduces Energy City, a multi-agent framework designed and developed in order to simulate the power system and explore the potential of Consumer Social Networks (CSNs) as a means to promote demand-side response and raise social awareness towards energy consumption. The power system with all its involved actors (Consumers, Producers, Electricity Suppliers, Transmission and Distribution Operators) and their requirements are modeled. The semantic infrastructure for the formation and analysis of electricity CSNs is discussed, and the basic consumer attributes and CSN functionality are identified. Authors argue that the formation of such CSNs is expected to increase the electricity consumer market power by enabling them to act in a collective way.