Tackling Household Economic Surplus Improvement and Sustainability (THESIS) in Microgrids

Abstract

Decentralized electricity systems increasingly emerge where centralized grids fail to provide reliable supply. In such settings, privately operated neighborhood microgrids, often based on diesel generators, exhibit significant market power, limited regulatory oversight, and high environmental externalities. In parallel, households increasingly deploy off-grid solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to gain control over electricity supply. However, these systems suffer from curtailed excess generation during peak solar hours and unreliable access at other times. While prior studies have optimized microgrids in low-reliability grid contexts from a techno-economic perspective, they largely neglect the market power exerted by monopolistic private generators. This thesis addresses this gap by developing a bi-level game-theoretic model that enables household-generated electricity to be fed into the microgrid while explicitly accounting for the market power of a neighborhood diesel generator company (DGC). The regulator sets price and feed-in-tariff caps to maximize household economic surplus (HES), while the DGC acts as a profit-maximizing agent controlling access and supply. The microgrid can operate without connection to the national grid, or with partial, stochastic interconnection. The model is illustrated using high-resolution empirical data from Lebanon. Results show that: (i) price and feed-in-tariff caps substantially increase HES and consistently induce significant household PV feed-in to the microgrid; (ii) higher DGC budgets or greater PV-owner penetration lead to pronounced gains in HES; (iii) the renewable energy share reaches 60% under base conditions and approaches 100% at sufficiently high budgets or PV-owner penetration levels, compared to 0% under the status quo; (iv) the market power of the DGC can be effectively mitigated by price and feed-in tariff incentives; and (v) the same improvements hold under national grid interconnection, although to a more moderate extent.