| dc.description.abstract | The past decade has seen a rapid uptake of distributed, variable renewable energy (VRE)
solutions by many end-users to meet their daily electricity requirements. Yet, many
household consumers are unable to afford the high cost of these generating systems, like
solar PV systems and batteries. The problem is particularly acute in developing regions,
such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where approximately 592 million (more than half of
the total population) live without access to electricity. To address this challenge, this
thesis studies the use of automated negotiations as a local peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity
trading mechanism to improve the accessibility and affordability of electricity in weak
grid and off-grid regions.
The research stems from the need to utilise available local renewable energy sources
(RES) and innovative market structures to improve electricity access in weak and off-grid
settings. It thus studies how the surplus electricity generation from off-grid solar PV
systems (as installed in Nigeria, the most populous electricity-deficit country in the
world) can be utilised to improve and increase access to electricity. To achieve this, we
propose the design of a novel automated negotiation framework for use in such local P2P
electricity markets. This includes the design of an ‘Alternating Offers’ automated
negotiation framework for a fully decentralised P2P electricity market, as well as the
design of an automated negotiation framework for a centralised community-based P2P
electricity market utilising Nash bargaining solution and the Egalitarian social welfare
function. It also includes a study of the appropriate multi-agent systems models (i.e.,
pieces of software that can automatically negotiate the buying and selling of electricity in
micro-transactions on behalf of their human owners).
With a simulated daily minimum surplus PV generation of 2 MWh/day to a maximum
surplus of 31 MWh/day for the Nigerian cities of Abuja and Kano, 20 MWh/day for
Lagos, and 15 MWh/day for Port Harcourt, this research shows how this surplus
unutilised PV generation can potentially power 10,000 – 155,000 Tier-2 households or
2,000 – 31,00 Tier-3 households, daily. This is an estimated annual 3,500 – 30,000 Mt of
CO2 emission savings if utilised instead of fossil-fuel generation. Our proposed
frameworks also show that with an estimated annual revenue of approximately $250 –
$2,550 depending on the size of the installed system, the prosumer peers would be able
to maximise the utility from their installed systems and reduce their payback period.
Likewise, the consumer peers would have access to more sustainable, reliable, and
affordable electricity. | en |
