A Canonical Coalitional Game Theoretic Approach for Energy Management for Nanogrids

This paper explores the benefits of forming a coalition of a number of nanogrids in a smart community when they assist by supplying their energy surplus to a shared facility controller (SFC). In this context, a canonical coalition game (CCG) is studied, in which a number of nanogrids, such as households, form a grand coalition in order to supply a contracted amount of energy to the SEC with a view to gain some revenue. A suitable utility function is proposed that captures the benefit to the coalition of trading the energy with the SFC, as well as the penalty that may occur if the coalition fails to provide the SEC with the contracted energy amount. The properties of the coalition are studied and a fair utility allocation technique, i.e., a proportional payoff division scheme, is exploited for distributing the benefits between the participating nanogrids based on the supply they contribute.