## 2 Detailed Analysis of the Literature
### Prosumer Relationships
#### 2.2.1 Provider-Consumer Relationship  
The provider-consumer relationship is an essential element of the smart grid technology because it influences the efficiency of energy production and consumption as well as the proper balance of energy demand and supply. Thus, its management must be given sufficient attention so that both parties can work together harmoniously and achieve long-term sustainability of energy exchange. However, this relationship presents multiple complexities as observed in the related literature [60; 61; 62; 71]. In exploring the complexities of the provider-consumer relationship, system models were used to illustrate the entities, actors, processes, actions, and associations within the smart grid [60]. Their model has four phases--registration phase, request phase, delivery phase and confirmation phase. A central authority handles operational control within the system and also plays the role of a broker agent that enables communication among providers and consumers. Network control agents and smart meters provide control of the end users' connections to the grid [60]. A study investigated the relationship among energy prosumers and energy companies, by gathering data through interviews and participant observations of Finnish private solar power owners and energy company representatives [61]. Findings reveal that the relationship is a co-producing stakeholder relation where the key element is reciprocity. Prosumers strongly expect to be acknowledged by the energy companies as being co-producers. Failure to do so may result in prosumers' refusal to sell surplus energy to the grid. As a result, the perception of other stakeholders or the society towards energy companies is affected particularly from a corporate social responsibility perspective. On the other hand, since co-production entails working together, prosumers receive support from their energy company as part of the company's community involvement. Several related studies also support this line of thought [16; 36; 72]. In a reciprocal relationship, both parties should ideally benefit by working together. The energy provider and customer relationship transforms into a \"bilateral monopoly\" relationship, or a situation where a single producer faces a single consumer, and where each party negotiates to maximize gain whenever the other party makes an effort to adapt [62]. The conflicting interests between the customer and the provider, where the customer wants cheaper energy whereas the provider is interested in maximizing economic return, may lead to ineffective management of microgrids. Resolving this fundamental challenge involves aligning these interests through various mechanisms [62] such as long-term contracting [63; 64; 65], performance-based contract design [66; 65], profit and risk sharing [67; 65], and incentive strategies [68; 65; 69; 70]. Long-term contracting is an efficient governance approach which aims to ensure that the objectives between two parties are aligned and that the agreed expectations from one another are realized [62]. In the area of prosumer relationship management, long-term contracting can be beneficial to both generators and consumers. Such contracts enable the generators to avoid low wholesale prices and protect them from the cost of uncertain future production while allowing the consumers to avoid high prices and safeguard against the cost of uncertain future demand [63]. Due to uncertainty in future supply and demand, the contract aims to provide a proper balance. One method to address this challenge is to introduce a model for long-term contracting for competing utility providers [64]. In the proposed model, a Recursive Genetic Annealing algorithm could be used to determine the Nash-Equilibrium or the best energy combination of cost and uncertainty, so as not to compromise the adherence of the utility company to the contract. Results of testing on ten utility companies show that the algorithm outperformed the traditional scheme in terms of speed and quality [64].