To maintain the power supply reliability, retail electricity suppliers notify transmission and distribution companies of the amount of power supply in advance and procure the power required for actual electricity trades. If the retail electricity suppliers are unable to procure the notified amount of power supply, the resulting power shortage or excess must be compensated by paying a heavy imbalance penalty. Focusing on the framework of energy resource aggregation business, the authors propose a calculation method of incentive payments in demand response programs for economic electricity trading by the retail electricity suppliers. Based on the concept of maximizing social welfare, the demand response-induced changes in each utility function of the retail electricity suppliers and their consumers are translated into a guide for rebate level settings. Moreover, the optimal rebate levels are defined in terms of minimizing the burden on the demand response programs. Through numerical simulations and discussion on their results, the validity of the proposal verified.
