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Electricity Markets and Intelligent Agents Part II: Agent Architectures and Capabilities

  • Fernando LopesEmail author
  • Helder Coelho
Chapter
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Part of the Studies in Systems, Decision and Control book series (SSDC, volume 144)

Abstract

Agent technology is a relatively new and rapidly expanding area of research and development. The major motivations for the increasing interest in intelligent agents and multi-agent systems include the ability to provide solutions to problems that can naturally be regarded as a society of autonomous interacting components, to solve problems that are too large for a centralized agent to solve, and to provide solutions in situations where expertise is distributed. Electricity markets (EMs) are complex distributed systems, typically involving a variety of transactive techniques (e.g., centralized and bilateral market clearing). The agent-based approach is an ideal fit to the naturally distributed domain of EMs. Accordingly, a number of agent-based models and systems for EMs have been proposed in the technical literature. These models and systems exhibit fairly different features and make use of a diverse range of concepts. At present, there seems to be no agreed framework to analyze and compare disparate research efforts. Chapter  2 and this companion chapter claim that such a framework can be very important and instructive, helping to understand the interrelationships of disparate research efforts. Accordingly, Chap.  2 (Part I) and this chapter (Part II) introduce a generic framework for agent-based simulation of EMs. The complete framework includes three groups (or categories) of dimensions: market architecture, market structure and software agents. The first two groups were the subject of Chap.  2. This chapter discusses in considerable detail the last group of dimensions, labeled “software agents”, and composed by two distinct yet interrelated dimensions: agent architectures and agent capabilities.

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Notes

Acknowledgements

The work described in this chapter was performed under the project MAN-REM: Multi-agent Negotiation and Risk Management in Electricity Markets (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-020397), supported by FEDER Funds, through the program COMPETE (“Programa Operacional Temático Factores de Competividade”), and also National Funds, through FCT (“Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia”). The authors also wish to acknowledge the valuable comments and suggestions made by Hannele Holttinen, from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.LNEG–National Laboratory of Energy and GeologyLisbonPortugal
  2. 2.University of LisbonLisbonPortugal

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