Increasing Use of Renewable Energy by Coalition Formation of Renewable Generators and Energy Stores

Renewable sources are not used to their full potential for electricity generation. Unpredictability of solar and wind power forces renewable generators to bid conservative generation amounts in a day-ahead market in order to avoid fees for failure to provide generation. In this paper we propose an approach to increase the use of renewable sources, which allows renewable generators to hedge against generation unpredictability by forming coalitions with energy stores. Inside these coalitions renewable generators purchase availability of energy stores to generate power when needed. Renewable generators use this availability to avoid fees for failure to provide committed generation whenever the current generation is lower than the committed value. We experimentally show that our approach allows renewable generators to commit to 100% of the predicted generation, thus increasing the use of renewable sources. We also show that our approach generates profit incentives for both renewable generators and energy stores to form coalitions.