Special Section on Local and Distributed Electricity Markets

Driven by the Goals of Clean Energy and Zero Carbon Emissions, the Power Industry is Undergoing Significant Transformations. the Rapid Growth of Diverse Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) at Grid Edge Such as Rooftop Photovoltaics (PVs) and Electric Vehicles is Transforming the Traditional Centralized Power Grid Management to a Decentralized, Bottom-Up, and Localized Control Paradigm. Establishing Local and Distribution-Level Electricity Markets Provides an Effective Solution to Managing Large Amounts of Small-Scale DERs. New Regulations Such as the Recent FERC Order 2222 in the U.S. Open the Door to DERs in the Wholesale Markets. through Coordinating the Local and Distribution-Level Markets with the Transmission-Level Wholesale Market, the DERs and Prosumers Can Trade Energy and Flexibility Locally with Each Other and Meanwhile Provide Energy, Flexibility and Ancillary Services to the Bulk Power Grid. during This Transition, There Are Many New Technical Challenges to Address, Calling for Innovative Ideas and Interdisciplinary Research in This Promising Direction. Advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Are Needed, as a Key Enabler, for the Development and Practical Implementation of Local and Distribution Electricity Markets. Research into Local and Distribution Markets is Strongly Interdisciplinary, Involving the State of the Art in Power Engineering, Economics, and Digital/information Technology. a Broad Spectrum of Contributors from Universities, Industry, Research Laboratories and Policy Makers is Sought to Develop and Present Solutions and Technologies that Will Facilitate and Advance Practical Applications and Implementations of Local and Distribution-Level Electricity Markets to Uncover the Values of DERs

A cooperative and incentive-based proxy-and-client caching system for on-demand media streaming.

Ip Tak Shun.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-101).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Abstract --- p.iAcknowledgement --- p.ivChapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1Chapter 1.1.1 --- Media Streaming --- p.1Chapter 1.1.2 --- Incentive Mechanism --- p.2Chapter 1.2 --- Cooperative and Incentive-based Proxy-and-Client Caching --- p.4Chapter 1.2.1 --- Cooperative Proxy-and-Client Caching --- p.4Chapter 1.2.2 --- Revenue-Rewarding Mechanism --- p.5Chapter 1.3 --- Thesis Contribution --- p.6Chapter 1.4 --- Thesis Organization --- p.7Chapter 2 --- Related Work --- p.9Chapter 2.1 --- Media Streaming --- p.9Chapter 2.2 --- Incentive Mechanism --- p.11Chapter 2.3 --- Resource Pricing --- p.14Chapter 3 --- Cooperative Proxy-and-Client Caching --- p.16Chapter 3.1 --- Overview of the COPACC System --- p.16Chapter 3.2 --- Optimal Cache Allocation (CAP) --- p.21Chapter 3.2.1 --- Single Proxy with Client Caching --- p.21Chapter 3.2.2 --- Multiple Proxies with Client Caching --- p.24Chapter 3.2.3 --- Cost Function with Suffix Multicast --- p.26Chapter 3.3 --- Cooperative Proxy-Client Caching Protocol --- p.28Chapter 3.3.1 --- Cache Allocation and Organization --- p.29Chapter 3.3.2 --- Cache Lookup and Retrieval --- p.30Chapter 3.3.3 --- Client Access and Integrity Verification --- p.30Chapter 3.4 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.33Chapter 3.4.1 --- Effectiveness of Cooperative Proxy and Client Caching --- p.34Chapter 3.4.2 --- Robustness --- p.37Chapter 3.4.3 --- Scalability and Control Overhead --- p.38Chapter 3.4.4 --- Sensitivity to Network Topologies --- p.40Chapter 4 --- Revenue-Rewarding Mechanism --- p.43Chapter 4.1 --- System Model --- p.44Chapter 4.1.1 --- System Overview --- p.44Chapter 4.1.2 --- System Formulation --- p.47Chapter 4.2 --- Resource Allocation Game --- p.50Chapter 4.2.1 --- Non-Cooperative Game --- p.50Chapter 4.2.2 --- Profit Maximizing Game --- p.52Chapter 4.2.3 --- Utility Maximizing Game --- p.61Chapter 4.3 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.74Chapter 4.3.1 --- Convergence --- p.76Chapter 4.3.2 --- Participation Incentive --- p.77Chapter 4.3.3 --- Cost effectiveness --- p.85Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.87Chapter A --- NP-Hardness of the CAP problem --- p.90Chapter B --- Optimality of the Greedy Algorithm --- p.92Bibliography --- p.9

Security and efficiency of collateral in decentralized finance

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) promises to be a new contender for a radically new financial system. Its foundations are censorship-resistant, non-custodial, and transparent financial protocols. Securing these protocols is achieved by combining cryptographic primitives with economic incentives instead of relying on trusted intermediaries. In DeFi, financial collateral is the central incentive measure providing repercussions against "misbehaving” agents. However, requiring collateral introduces security and efficiency concerns. (i) Securing DeFi protocols using price-volatile and complex assets requires careful risk management. (ii) Efficiency of capital is diminished since locking assets is an opportunity cost and restricts access to DeFi to agents with sufficient funds. We tackle these issues by developing new protocols to optimize collateral requirements in existing DeFi protocols safely. Our contributions are threefold. First, we provide a risk-based classification of collateral applied in DeFi protocols. Specifically, the classification serves as the starting point to develop a model capturing the security property of financial collateral with unique risks in DeFi. Second, we present two protocols that can be integrated into existing DeFi protocols. Promise transforms suitable DeFi protocols into a subscription mechanism lowering the initial capital locking requirements thus tackling the capital efficiency of collateral. Balance is a protocol to reduce collateral in DeFi protocols safely. Balance is similar to a credit scoring system where “well-behaving” agents enjoy a lowered collateral. As such, Balance can be used both to tailor security of protocols by required per-agent collateral requirements instead of per-protocol requirements and, at the same time, increase capital efficiency of collateral. We demonstrate the practical applicability of Promise and Balance by decreasing collateral in the XCLAIM cross-chain communication protocol by up to 10% under conservative assumptions. Third, we discuss the practical security of financial collateral. We outline new types of attacks on DeFi protocols secured by collateral through trustless coordination of rational agents and so-called flash loans with the example of the popular Maker protocol. We conclude by noting the perils of constructing collateralized DeFi protocols and outlining strands of future work to increase their security and efficiency.Open Acces

Emerging business models in local energy markets: A systematic review of peer-to-peer, community self-consumption, and transactive energy models

The emergence of peer-to-peer, collective or community self-consumption, and transactive energy concepts gives rise to new configurations of business models for local energy trading among a variety of actors. Much attention has been paid in the academic literature to the transition of the underlying energy system with its macroeconomic market framework. However, fewer contributions focus on the microeconomic aspects of the broad set of involved actors. Even though specific case studies highlight single business models, a comprehensive analysis of emerging business models for the entire set of actors is missing. Following this research gap, this paper conducts a systematic literature review of 135 peer-reviewed journal articles to examine business models of actors operating in local energy markets. From 221 businesses in the reviewed literature, nine macro-actor categories are identified. For each type of market actor, a business model archetype is determined and characterised using the business model canvas. The key elements of each business model archetype are discussed, and areas are highlighted where further research is needed. Finally, this paper outlines the differences of business models for their presence in the three local energy market models. Focusing on the identified customers and partner relationships, this study highlights the key actors per market model and the character of the interactions between market participants

Innovative Business Models for Distributed PV in Brazil

Most of the increase in world electricity demand until 2030 is expected to come from developing countries (IRENA, 2016) and transition to carbon free energy production technologies offers the opportunity to reduce the negative effects of this increase. With majority of the low and middle income countries located in the areas of favourable solar radiation, PV technology is likely to become a key source of energy in these countries. Brazil is one of the middle income countries with very high solar potential and has much to benefit from the rapid deployment of PV. However, the development is impeded by various economic, institutional and social barriers.Innovative business models can be helpful in overcoming these barriers and accelerate the market adoption of PV. By looking at the case of Brazil, this study investigates how innovative business models for distributed solar PV can help to overcome the deployment barriers. Business models of Third Party Ownership, Community Solar, Crowd-funding and Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading are analysed through the business model canvas framework of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010). The results show that all four models can have unique contributions to help increase the deployment of distributed PV in Brazil by effectively addressing the fundamental barrier of financing, by offering complementary value propositions, by increasing the potential user base and by increasing awareness among general public, through peer effect or community bonds. With its findings the study contributes to the limited research on PV business models in urban context in middle income countries. Policy recommendations include regulatory adjustments to prepare for a future energy system with distributed generation and disruptive business models with advanced digital technology like crowd-funding and P2P, opening ways for the electricity distribution companies to align their interest with solar businesses and cooperate, and providing low cost credit lines aimed at smaller solar companies

Telecommunication Economics

This book constitutes a collaborative and selected documentation of the scientific outcome of the European COST Action IS0605 Econ@Tel "A Telecommunications Economics COST Network" which run from October 2007 to October 2011. Involving experts from around 20 European countries, the goal of Econ@Tel was to develop a strategic research and training network among key people and organizations in order to enhance Europe's competence in the field of telecommunications economics. Reflecting the organization of the COST Action IS0605 Econ@Tel in working groups the following four major research areas are addressed: - evolution and regulation of communication ecosystems; - social and policy implications of communication technologies; - economics and governance of future networks; - future networks management architectures and mechanisms