Theoretical study on demand-side management to reduce imbalance between electricity supply and demand

The gap between electricity supply and demand, which is the electricity imbalance, can have negative economic impacts on retail electricity suppliers. This paper presents a methodology for designing demand response (DR) programs while mitigating the negative impacts. The DR programs require the retailers to set target electricity consumption and prices of economic incentives for customers who cooperate with the DR programs. First, the target electricity consumption is determined by solving a problem of social welfare maximization in which the objective function is the sum of economic surplus of the retailers and their customers and impacts of electricity imbalance. The optimal electricity prices or the optimal rebate levels are then calculated under the principle that rational customers act to maximize their economic surplus. Through numerical simulations, the authors confirmed that the proposed methodology mitigated the impacts of electricity imbalance. Meanwhile, results of the numerical simulations showed that in practical situations, there were cases where the retailers unable to reduce the electricity imbalance profitably. Therefore, the authors additionally discuss ways to assess the electricity imbalance, which motivates the retailers to reduce the imbalance, in such cases.