Distributed coordination of micro-grids using bilateral contracts

More than 1 billion people worldwide living in rural communities without access to electricity could benefit from distributed generation. A major difficulty with any distributed generation solution, however, is coordinating the distributed energy resources to meet demands. Distributed control techniques based on resource allocation can be used to solve this problem. One such technique utilizes bilateral contracts between loads and sources, which can be facilitated by auctions. Four major auction types - first-price sealed bid, Vickrey, English and Dutch - can be used. Simulations that mimic distributed control have been conducted in order to compare the four auction types. The simulations show which auction types should be used under different conditions.