A Multiagent Competitive Gaming Platform to Address Societal Challenges1
作者研究了如何利用信息系统的创新来推动可持续电力系统转型。他们开发了一个名为Power TAC的多智能体竞争游戏平台，让多个研究团队在这个平台上共同设计、测试和改进基于信息系统的解决方案，以应对可再生能源分布式发电、电动汽车等带来的挑战。传统电力系统是中央集中发电、需求缺乏弹性，而新系统需要利用实时消费信息和价格信号来激励可持续消费行为。作者通过Power TAC社区的初步实证结果，展示了这种竞争游戏平台在促进解决方案创新方面的有效性，以及社区对解决可持续电力挑战的贡献。
The shift toward sustainable electricity systems is one of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Decentralized production from renewable sources, electric mobility, and related advances are at odds with traditional power systems where central, large-scale generation of electricity follows inelastic consumer demand. Information systems innovations can enable new forms of dynamic electricity trading that leverage real-time consumption information and that use price signals to incentivize sustainable consumption behaviors. However, the best designs for these innovations, and the societal implications of different design choices, are largely unclear. We are addressing these challenges through the Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC), a competitive gaming platform on which numerous research groups now jointly devise, benchmark, and improve IS-based solutions to the sustainable electricity challenge. Based on the Power TAC community’s results, we give preliminary empirical evidence for the efficacy of competitive gaming platforms, and for the community’s contributions toward resolving the sustainable electricity challenge.