A distributed online algorithm for optimal real-time energy distribution in smart grid

The two-way energy and information flows in a smart gird, together with the smart devices, bring new perspectives to energy management and demand response. This paper investigates a distributed online algorithm for electricity energy distribution in a smart grid environment. We first present a formulation that captures the key design factors such as user utility, grid load smoothing, and energy provisioning cost. The problem is shown to be convex and can be solved with an online algorithm that only requires present information about users and the grid in our prior work. In this paper, we develop a distributed online algorithm which decomposes and solves the online problem in a distributed manner, and prove that the distributed online solution is asymptotically optimal. The proposed distributed online algorithm is also practical and effective for user privacy protection. It is evaluated with trace-driven simulations and shown to outperform a benchmark scheme.