Decision-analytic evaluation of game-theoretic participation models for distributed renewable energy in net-zero power systems

The participation of distributed renewable energy resources in net-zero power systems can be a major factor influencing costs, reliability, environmental impact, and social acceptance. This paper has discussed four game-theory-inspired participation scenarios, namely non-cooperative operation, cooperative aggregation, hierarchical coordination, and peer-to-peer trading. A multi-criteria decision-making framework was used by combining entropy-based weighting, expert judgment, and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to rank these scenarios. Two assessment settings were developed: the basic case that is based on literature-benchmarked reference values, and the Oman case that is developed using local cost and resource data. In both cases, reliability, represented by loss of power supply probability, received the highest weight, highlighting supply adequacy as the primary factor in the decision process. The TOPSIS results showed that the hierarchical scenario ranked first in the baseline case, whereas the cooperative scenario ranked first in the Oman case. With sensitivity tests of 20 percent weight variation, the Oman-case ranking did not change, whereas small switches of ranks occurred between the middle options. In conclusion, the findings indicate that the participation ranking depends on circumstances, and that the cooperative aggregation could offer a low-regret alternative in Oman when reliability and feasible implementation are of central interest. The framework can support early policy and planning by bringing the evidence in the different sources into explicit and transparent comparison of scenarios.