Optimal coalition formation and maximum profit allocation for distributed energy resources in smart grids based on cooperative game theory

Over the past decades, significant revolutions have occurred on electricity market to reduce the electricity cost and increase profits. In particular, the novel structures facilitate the electricity manufacturers to participate in the market and earn more profit by cooperate with other producers. This paper presents a three-level gameplay-based intelligent structure to evaluate individual and collaborative strategies of electricity manufacturers, considering network and physical constraints. At the Level I, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is implemented to determine the optimum power of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the power grid, to maximize the profits. Further, the fuzzy logic algorithm is applied to model the intermittent nature of the renewable sources and implement load demand in the power grid. At the Level II, DERs are classified into two different fuzzy logic groups to secure the fairness between every participant. Finally, at the Level III, the DERs in each group are combined each other by cooperative game theory-based algorithms to increase the coalition profits. Thereafter, Shapley, Nucleolus, and merge/split methods are applied to allocate a fair profit allocation by coalition formation. Ultimately, the results verify the proposed model influence electric players to find effective collaborative strategies under different conditions and environments. •Proposing an intelligent three-level structure based on cooperative game theory.•Achieving the maximum benefit from cooperation with other resources.•Lifting the restriction on the number of participants in the grand coalition.•Feasibility of proposed scheme with engaging a large number of buyers and producers.