Abstract
The growth of microgrids to fulfil electricity demand could lead to arguments or conflicts between the private microgrid system owners and the existing national distribution authority, especially in overlapping sales areas. The core issue identified in this paper is a distribution system management model based on the cooperative concept of unifying the multi-owned networks as a single system to ensure the natural monopoly function. This model can avoid complex wheeling charges across multi-owned grids within overlapping sales areas, in which all network users pay at the expense of the merged system charge. This paper proposes the model and shows numerical examples using a suitable distribution network pricing model to recover existing costs and plan for future system expansion. The proposed model and charging algorithm were tested on a modified IEEE 13 bus to examine their impacts. The result demonstrates that the model resolves the issues with the overlapping sales area and creates a fair scenario for the network users regarding the usage charges. Thailand is chosen as the primary reference area, as it is a country with an actual sample case for the argument.