A Framework for Agent-Based Electricity Markets: Preliminary Report

The electricity industry has evolved to open marketsthat promote competition among suppliers and provide consumers with a choice of services. Most energy markets (EMs) were, however, designed without the notion that a significant part of the traded power could come from renewable energy sources, and may require modifications to continue functioning effectively. Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) presents itself as a promising approach to accurately model the behavior of EMs over time. This article claims that the development of a conceptual framework to define the key features that are needed to model and simulate EMs using software agents can be an important step to assess progress in the field and highlight new avenues to explore. As a first step in this direction, it describes a category of dimensions, labeled "market architecture", of a conceptual framework for agent-based electricity markets.