An Agent-based Model for Simulating Smart Grid Innovations

The supply and demand of electricity grids has to be in balance at every time, otherwise devices may break or even blackouts will occur. The main objective of the Swiss EnergyStrategy 2050 is to deactivate the nuclear power plants and replace its energy production with more distributed renewable alternative energy sources. This transition will notonly have an impact on the electricity grid, but also on the energy markets. Renewable energy occurs on occasion and thus solutions for basic supply are still required. If the suppliers of basic supply are not able to produce economically, the balance is endangered. Due to the lack of data, it is impossible to predict the impact of future inuencers to the stability of the electricity grid and market. Furthermore, changing behaviour of customers and alternative markets models increase this uncertainty. Agent-based models enable simulations of scenarios where no historical data is available and have been successfully applied for studying different behaviour of electricity market and largescalesimulations, but without focusing on the grid and market stability of future energymixes. Applying the Design Science Research approach, an agent-based model has been designedto address this issue. The agents market, bookkeeper, grid, grid-region, representthe electricity market, the settlement with its regulations and the infrastructure onwhich consumers and suppliers act. Consumers demand energy based on seasonal orprice variations and the suppliers' production depends on seasonal variations, on thelocal solar irradiation or its exibility. The exibility describes the ability to react toa received order; some suppliers react instantly, others do not react at all or are onlyable to react limited and therefore have to pro-actively change their behaviour. Finally,prosumers that buy, store and sell energy have been implemented to represent smarthomes with batteries or hydro-storage power-plants....