User Empathy in Smart Energy Management

This paper investigates interaction among residential electricity users and utility company in a distribution network with the capability of two-way communication provided by smart grid. The energy consumption scheduling of electricity users is formulated as a game- theoretic problem within a group where all players are not totally selfish. Considering empathetic behavior of human decision-making, empathetic player action to other players actions can be influenced by recognizing the well being of others. The proposed model captures the empathy of electricity users in energy scheduling and demonstrates how this behavior can decrease energy consumption and electricity prices. Furthermore, it is shown that selfish users cannot make full use of energy saving by empathetic users.