An optimal distributed constraint optimisation algorithm for efficient energy management

The deregulation of the electricity industry in Europe has created a number of marketplaces in which producers and consumers can operate in order to more effectively manage and meet their energy needs. To this end, in previous work we introduced a new market design where consumers allocate the supply of the energy they need in a number of simultaneous reverse combinatorial auctions. To do this efficiently, each consumer needs to coordinate and optimise the use of its various appliances to achieve the best possible consumption schedule according to the received bids. In particular, this paper models each client's constellation of devices as a distributed constraint optimisation problem (DCOP) and we develop a novel optimal algorithm (COBB - Constraint Optimisation By Broadcasting) for solving it. We also evaluate COBB, prove its optimality and show how it outperforms other comparable algorithms.