The Impact of Local Energy Market Participants’ Decisions on Efficient Energy Usage: Design of a Multi-Agent System

In recent years, many studies have been conducted on local energy markets. While local energy markets are mostly modeled with economically rational participants, many house- holds also consider energy quality, such as energy locality, in their energy choices. Therefore, we propose to include participants’ heterogeneous preferences from energy locality to economic rationality in the design of a multi-agent system to ensure a more efficient use of locally generated energy, which helps to increase the attractiveness of participating in local energy markets. Our results show that our design can fulfill the individual preferences of local energy market participants and prove that energy is used most efficiently with a dominant local preference group.