Real-Time Pricing Decision Making for Retailer-Wholesaler in Smart Grid Based on Game Theory

Real-time pricing DSM (demand side management) is widely used to dynamically change or shift the electricity consumption in the smart grid. In this paper, a game decision making scheme is proposed in the smart grid with DSM. The interaction between two retailers and their wholesaler is modeled as a two-stage game model. Considering the competition between two retailers, two different game models are developed in terms of the different action order between retailers and their wholesaler. Through analyzing the equilibrium revenues of the retailers for different situations we find that although the wholesaler expects to decentralize certain management powers to the retailers, it has retained the right to change the rules of the game and frequently reneged on the promises. More specifically, the law should ensure that any change of the revenue-sharing formula must go through certain legal procedures. Imposing legal restrictions on the wholesaler’s discretionary policy suggests that the time-inconsistency problem is mitigated. Numerical simulation shows the effectiveness of proposed scheme.