Reinforcement Learning-Based Pricing and Incentive Strategy for Demand Response in Smart Grids

Abstract

International agreements support the modernization of electricity networks and renewable energy resources (RES). However, these RES affect market prices due to resource variability (e.g., solar). Among the alternatives, Demand Response (DR) is presented as a tool to improve the balance between electricity supply and demand by adapting consumption to available production. In this sense, this work focuses on developing a DR model that combines price and incentive-based demand response models (P-B and I-B) to efficiently manage consumer demand with data from a real San Juan—Argentina distribution network. In addition, a price scheme is proposed in real time and by the time of use in relation to the consumers’ influence in the peak demand of the system. The proposed schemes increase load factor and improve demand displacement compared to a demand response reference model. In addition, the proposed reinforcement learning model improves short-term and long-term price search. Finally, a description and formulation of the market where the work was implemented is presented.