Real-time pricing in environments with shared energy storage systems

A major challenge in modern energy markets is the utilization of energy storage systems (ESSs) in order to cope up with the difference between the time intervals that energy is produced (e.g., through renewable energy sources) and the time intervals that energy is consumed. Modern energy pricing schemes (e.g., real-time pricing) do not model the case that an energy service provider owns a shared ESS that its customers could take advantage of, even though a shared ESS is more efficient than the operation of many individual ESSs (i.e., personal ESS case). Thus, we propose a shared ESS aware real-time pricing model that achieves a very attractive tradeoff between the service provider’s and end user’s interests. We also compare our system with its predecessors and we witness its superiority. The proposed scheme allows energy consumers to use shared ESS and have cost-efficient energy services and in the same time they protect their interests (fair billing).