New Framework Uses Game Theory to Integrate Renewable Energy Community Members

Integrating a new member into a renewable energy community is a complex problem with long-term consequences (investments, pricing) and short-term operational decisions (daily energy and financial flows). Researchers from the University of Mons propose a two-level framework to tackle this. For long-term decisions, they use finite extensive-form game theory to model strategic interactions among current and potential members. For short-term day-ahead scheduling, they formulate a generalized Nash equilibrium problem. Crucially, the framework incorporates prospect theory to capture bounded rationality and heterogeneous preferences—meaning members don't always act perfectly rationally and weigh gains and losses differently.

The approach is applied to two communities with five existing members and eleven candidate users across multiple preference configurations. The model reveals that equilibrium outcomes and stakeholder behavior are heavily influenced by the order of decisions, preference criteria, and especially the choice of reference point in prospect theory. The framework is flexible and general, applicable to various objectives. This research provides a rigorous mathematical basis for managing growth in renewable energy communities, helping policymakers and community managers design fair and efficient expansion protocols that account for human psychological biases.