A decentralized approach for optimal wholesale cross-border trade planningusing multi-agent technology

Over the past decade, power industry has been undergoing deregulations to i ntroduce competitions among market participants. Once centralized decision making must now adapt to the new market structure. The optimal cross-border electricity trade planning is an important issue In interconnected power s ystems under transmission open access. In this paper a decentralized approa ch is suggested to solve the problem using multi-agent technology. In the n ew approach rational market participants make decisions based on their own benefits, in the meantime the minimum production and transmission cost of t he whole system can be reached without a central coordination except necess ary information exchange through media like the Internet. A relevant lemma has been proven. The approach is implemented via a multi-agent system using Java programming language. Computer tests on a 5-area test system show tha t the suggested new approach is effective and promising.