Energy cooperatives (ECs) such as residential and industrial microgrids have
the potential to mitigate increasing fluctuations in renewable electricity
generation, but only if their joint response is coordinated. However, the
coordination and control of independently operated flexible resources (e.g.,
storage, demand response) imposes critical challenges arising from the
heterogeneity of the resources, conflict of interests, and impact on the grid.
Correspondingly, overcoming these challenges with a general and fair yet
efficient exchange mechanism that coordinates these distributed resources will
accommodate renewable fluctuations on a local level, thereby supporting the
energy transition. In this paper, we introduce such an exchange mechanism. It
incorporates a payment structure that encourages prosumers to participate in
the exchange by increasing their utility above baseline alternatives. The
allocation from the proposed mechanism increases the system efficiency
(utilitarian social welfare) and distributes profits more fairly (measured by
Nash social welfare) than individual flexibility activation. A case study
analyzing the mechanism performance and resulting payments in numerical
experiments over real demand and generation profiles of the Pecan Street
dataset elucidates the efficacy to promote cooperation between co-located
flexibilities in residential cooperatives through local exchange.Comment: Accepted in IEEE ICIT 201