A Market-Based Approach to Optimal Power Allocation in Electric Warships

The proposed work will investigate the feasibility of a market-based power allocation method for shipboard power systems. These systems will encompass more loads demanding more power in order to meet the U.S. Navy’s current and future missions. As power is a scarce resource with alternative uses, the allocation of power within a shipboard power system is posed as an economic problem. As such, PC Krause and Associates proposes to address power allocation with an artificial free market. The equilibrium points reached by free markets can be shown to be efficient in the sense that no market actor can have more without another having less. Thus, if the market actors (in this case, generation, distribution, conversion, storage, and usage devices that comprise the shipboard power system) each act according to microeconomic principles, an efficient solution emerges. The proposed work will frame the economic goals of the actors such that the efficient solution arrived at by the market corresponds to a solution that maximizes the utility of the commanding officer of the vessel. In this way, defining objectives is the only necessary human input, and the artificial market automatically controls individual devices, thereby finding the most efficient method of attaining the objectives.