Evaluating Individual and Community-Based Utility Functions for Energy Demand Response

We analyze the behavior of an energy community of prosumers and consumers that participate in a demand response (DR) program under various conditions. First, we examine the effect of considering individual (one function per prosumer/consumer) and community (a single function modeling the entire community) utility functions. In both cases, we we evaluate the results considering quadratic as well as logarithmic utilities. Second, we explore the impact of using a double auction versus a constant pricing mechanism to set the energy prices, before implementing the DR program. Across all scenarios, our goal remains to maximize community welfare. The results from diverse study scenarios reveal that, when considering individual utilities, the double auction combined with quadratic utilities achieves maximum benefit, while logarithmic functions do not vary significantly with the pricing mechanisms. Moreover, the the community-based model is not reactive to both the utility function type and the pricing mechanism. Interestingly, this model achieves higher benefits compared to the individual model. However, demand profiles exhibit more pronounced peaks when there is generation surplus.