IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 46

Proposal 1: Definition of Prosumer Community-Groups (PCGs)

Prosumer's Energy
Behavior Data

Time Series Data
Feasible
Number of
Prosumer
Community
Groups
PCG n

Time-Series Clustering

Data Acquisition
Data Filtering

Clustersers

Data Conversion
Prequalification Criteria
Definition
Membership Categories

PCG 2
PCG 1

PCG
Coordinator

Proposal 3: Mutual Goal Definition

Cost Objective

Sustainability Objective
Customer Objective

PCG
Coordinator
Goal
Programming
Model

Demand Objective

Resource Objective
Income Objective

Sub

-Go

al-4

l-2

oal-

-G
Sub

Participation Objective

an entity or group of entities involved
in forming, evolving and managing
the prosumer community groups.
The first proposal we discuss
is the definition of community
groups. In this proposal, the community coordinator acquires the
multi-dimensional energy sharing
profiles of all the prosumers who
show interest in joining any of the
community groups. The energy
time-series data are clustered into
the partitions. The two common
criteria to be focused on for finding
the cluster models are the cluster's
compactness, in which the objects
of each cluster should be as close
to the other objects on the same
cluster as possible, and the cluster's
separation, in which the different
clusters should be clearly spaced
from each other. The number of
prosumer clusters obtained via
the clustering system is optimized
into a feasible number of prosumer
community groups to ensure each
prosumer community group supplies a sufficient quantity of energy
and includes viable number of prosumers. The prosumer community
group coordinator considers the
output from the overall system in
order to define and characterize the
prosumer community groups. The
identified characteristics of prosumer community groups can be
represented as prequalification criteria for each prosumer community
group. For instance, a registered
prosumer should exhibit characteristics specified in the prequalification criteria of the specific
membership category, to become a
member of the corresponding community group.
The second proposal relates to
the recruitment of new prosumers
to the different prosumer community groups. Here, a scheme for proactive, continuous evaluation of the
prosumer's early energy behaviors
is proposed, before finalizing their
membership. In order to achieve
this, the prosumers are asked to supply energy for a consecutive number of energy transactions. We call

PCG 1

PCG 2

PCG n

Prosumer-Community-Groups

Fig.3. Concise overview of proposed methodologies.

this an "evaluation period." During each energy transaction of the
evaluation period, the prosumer's
real-time energy sharing quantity
is assessed, and if the corresponding energy sharing quantity satisfies the prequalification criteria,
the complying prosumer is eligible
to move forward in the evaluation
period, and is assigned to a flexible community group membership
category. Here the term "flexible"
is used, because this membership
status is not the prosumer's actual
final membership status within the
framework, and it can fluctuate

throughout the evaluation period.
The fixed final membership category is decided only at the end of
the evaluation period, after evaluating the overall performance of the
prosumer. Ultimately, this proposal
achieves a long-term prosumer
evaluation followed by effective
recruitment of prosumers to the
appropriate prosumer-community
groups.
The third proposal is about defining an optimal set of mutual goals
for community groups. Here, a
goal programming model is used
to find a compromised solution

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2014

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