IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 43

Utility Grid

!

Power Distribution and
Transmission

!

!

Renewable and Nonrenewable
Power Generation

Smart-Grid System Operation/Management
Accumulative
Energy Supply

Smart-Grid Energy
Requirement

Community Management Platform
Accumulative
Energy Supply

Energy
Goal

Energy
Goal

Accumulative
Energy Supply
Community
Gateway

Community
Gateway
Smart Storage

HAN
SMI

Smart Storage

HAN

HAN

20 kWh

SMI

SMI
30 kWh

60 kWh

HAN
SMI
80 kWh

Community Group 1:
51-100 kWh, Solar + Wind Sources

Community Group 1:
10-50 kWh, Solar Sources

Prosumer Community Groups
Fig.1. Prosumer community groups [2].

and regulates the flow of electricity to consumers. The sources in
the micro-grid have an ability to
power the users in the micro-grid,
discontinuing the connection with
the main utility grid and leading to
the concept of islanded micro-grid.
However, one of the main shortcomings of grouping prosumers
through dedicated technical infrastructure (Vpps and micro-grids)
is that this type of fixed architecture may result in inflexibility,
which makes it complex to add or
remove new members to the Vpp/
micro-grid. For instance some prosumers may offer whatever amount
of energy they can contribute, or
prefer to contribute, resulting in
an unreliable energy supply to the
energy buyers in the long term, ultimately resulting in negative morale
towards the entire Vpp or microgrid enabled prosumer-group.
Moreover, the prosumer groups

(those that exist in the literature)
are not goal oriented, as the prosumers have been merely interconnected via a technical infrastructure
without considering their diverse
energy sharing preferences and
behaviors. Consequently, the lack
of goal-oriented behavior reduces
the reliability of the energy supply
to energy buyers in the long term.
Moreover, chances of possible disagreements among members are
high in existing prosumer groups
because of their differing energy
sharing interests and preferences.

Goal-Oriented Prosumer
Community Groups
In order to address the aforementioned deficiencies of existing
prosumer groups, as well as to
promote sustainable social aspects
with regard to the prosumer management in the long-term, the concept of goal-oriented prosumer

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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SprING 2014

community groups has emerged.
Following the concepts of the
generic "virtual community," the
prosumer community groups have
also emerged by virtually aggregating the prosumers from different
locations, but with similar energy
behaviors. The concept of prosumer community group upgrades
the existing paradigms of Vpps
and micro-grids, and strengthens of
the socio-economic aspects of the
smart grid. The major difference
between the prosumer community
group and Vpp or micro-grid is that
the prosumer community group
members may not necessarily be
technically interconnected; they
are virtually joined together based
on their energy sharing behaviors
and stimulated to achieve a common goal, while Vpps and microgrids are often ad-hoc prosumer
groups that are connected through
an electricity grid.
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014
