A Game Theory Approach to Energy Management of An Engine–Generator/Battery/Ultracapacitor Hybrid Energy System

The complex configuration and behavior of multisource hybrid energy systems (HESs) present challenges to their energy management. For a balanced solution, it is especially important to represent and take advantage of the characteristics of each device and the interactive relationship among them. In this paper, multi-agent modeling and a game theory-based control strategy are proposed and combined for the energy management of an example engine-generator/battery/ultracapacitor (UC) HES. The three devices such as engine-generator unit, battery and UC packs are modeled and controlled as independent but related agents, through which the performance and requirements of the individual devices are fully respected. The energy management problem is then formulated as a noncooperative current control (NCC) game. The Nash equilibrium is analytically derived as a balanced solution that compromises the different preferences of the independent devices. The following simulation and experimental results validate the game theory-based control and its real-time implementation. The proposed approach could be further extended to become a general solution for the energy management and control of networked energy systems, in which again fully representing and balancing the different preferences of the components are important.