A game-theoretic method for prediction of microgrid growing trends in China

This paper presents a game-theoretic method to predict microgrid(MG) development tendency in China. As many distribution generators(DGs) are integrated in distribution systems, analysis of MG formation necessity is conducted from the aspect of DGs. In order to maximize the profit brought by DGs and to earn money from arbitrage, it may be necessary for customers to combine their DGs and loads and to construct an MG to obtain maximal control ability. A game model is built to emulate trading between MGs and the distribution system based on MG power control, in which both trading profit and outage cost are considered for each MG. Nash equilibrium(NE) is calculated, and sensitivities of NE to some boundary conditions are studied. The results show that variable MG trading prices with appropriate net generation cost(i.e., DG generation cost minus government subsidy price) may encourage the growth of MGs. Government subsidies, generation costs, and trading prices may also affect DG use, and therefore they may impact customer motivation to build MGs.