Exploring Regulation Policies in Distribution Networks through a Multi-Agent Simulator

This paper presents a multi-agent simulator that describes the interactions between the agents of a distribution network (DN), and an environment. The agents are the users of the DN and the electricity distribution system operator. The environment is the set of rules (tariff design, technology costs, or incentive schemes) that impacts the agents interactions. For a given environment, we can simulate the evolution of the agents and the environment itself. We assume the electricity consumers are rational agents that may deploy distributed renewable energy installations if they are cost-efficient compared to the retail electricity tariff. The deployment of such installations may alter the cost recovery scheme of the distribution system operator, by inducing a change in the way the user use of the grid. By modelling the cost recovery mechanism of the distribution system operator, the system simulates the evolution of the retail electricity tariff in response to such a change in the aggregated consumption and production.