Incentive-based demand response model for maximizing benefits of electricity retailers

The change of customer behaviors and the fluctuation of spot prices can affect the benefits of electricity retailers. To address this issue, an incentive-based demand response (DR) model involving the utility and elasticity of customers is proposed for maximizing the benefits of retailers. The benefits will increase by triggering an incentive price to influence customer behaviors to change their demand consumptions. The optimal reduction of customers is obtained by their own profit optimization model with a certain incentive price. Then, the sensitivity of incentive price on retailers' benefits is analyzed and the optimal incentive price is obtained according to the DR model. The case study verifies the effectiveness of the proposed model.