Towards Multistep Electricity Prices in Smart Grid Electricity Markets

The multistep electricity price (MEP) policy has been introduced by many countries to promote energy saving, load balancing, and fairness in electricity consumption. Nonetheless, with the development of the smart grid, how to determine the quantity of electricity and at what price in a step-like fashion has not been fully investigated in the past. To address this issue, in this paper, we introduce two types of MEP models: a one-dimensional MEP model and a two-dimensional MEP model, which can be used to formally analyze and determine the desirable quantities of electricity and pricing in multiple steps. Particularly, in the one-dimensional MEP model, the steps are scaled only by the quantity of electricity whereas in the two-dimensional MEP model, the steps are scaled by both the quantity of electricity and the time when the electricity is used. Based on the proposed MEP models, we further investigate the vulnerability of the electricity market operation and investigate false data injection attacks against electricity prices and charges to consumers. Through an extensive simulation study, our data shows that the proposed MEP models can achieve fairness in electricity consumption, balance loads between peak and non-peak times, and improve electricity resource utilization. Our data also indicates that false data injection attacks can only partially compromise prices in our MEP models, leading to a limited impact on users' charges.