On the role of utility framing in smart grid energy storage management

In this paper, the problem of optimally charging or discharging customer-owned storage units in a smart grid is studied. In particular, a noncooperative game is formulated between customers equipped with distributed storage units who seek to decide on their optimal charging strategy so as to optimize a utility that reflects both the monetary benefit from the charging/ discharging operation and the associated penalty from power regulation. In contrast to the traditional game-theoretic models that are often based on rational and objective decisions, we introduce the behavioral framework of prospect theory (PT) so as to explicitly incorporate how the customers estimate their utilities with respect to their real-world considerations of gains and losses. The existence of the mixed-strategy Nash equilibrium is shown for the PT case and the properties of the game are analyzed under both PT and classical game theory. Simulation results show how the individual customer perceptions on their utilities can significantly impact the overall charging and discharging operations.