A negotiation protocol for multiple interdependent issues negotiation over energy exchange

Abstract

We present a novel negotiation protocol to facilitate energy exchange between off-grid homes that are equipped with renewable energy generation and electricity storage. Our solution imposes additional constraints on negotiation such that it reduces a complex interdependent multi-issue problem to one that is tractable. We prove that using our protocol, agents can reach a Pareto-optimal, dominant strategy equilibrium in a decentralized and timely fashion. We empirically evaluate our approach in a realistic setting. In this case, we show that energy exchange can be useful in reducing the capacity of the energy storage devices in homes by close to 40%.

Interdependent Multi-Issue Negotiation for Energy Exchange in Remote Communities

“…Our protocol imposes four key restrictions on the offers that agents can make and specifies the negotiation process in a way such that it leads to a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium (SPNE). Our work can be seen in line with Alam et al (2011), however, our protocol is concurrent and scalable to a community. In addition, our protocol does not assume financial payments or a mediator which makes it applicable in the decentralised remote communities.…”

“…To address this challenge, Alam et al (2011) presented a bi-lateral negotiation protocol to facilitate negotiation over energy exchange between two agents. Their attempt is inspired by more general work of Rosenschein and Zlotkin (1994) which shows that careful design of a negotiation protocol can reduce the complexity in negotiation.…”