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Abstract
Majority of recent large-scale blackouts have been caused by voltage instability. As all states leading to large-scale blackouts
are unique, there is no algorithm to identify pre-emergency states. Moreover, numerical conventional methods are
computationally expensive, which makes it difficult to use for the on-line security assessment. Machine learning techniques
with their pattern recognition, learning capabilities and high speed of identifying the potential security boundaries can offer an
alternative approach. This paper proposes a novel semi-automated method based on ensemble decision trees (DTs) learning for
on-line voltage security assessment. Operating conditions are randomly generated. Multiple DTs are first trained off-line using
the resampling cross-validation method. The DT learning algorithm is implemented using C4.5 decision tree, Classification
and Regression Tree (CART), bagged CART, Random Forest, Extra Trees and Stochastic Gradient Descent tree. The best
model is selected based on its performance. The obtained security model is used on-line to classify the system operating states
based on the patterns created in the off-line simulations. If required, the final DT model can produce an alarm for triggering
emergency and protection systems. A case study using the IEEE 118-bus system demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed
approach. The results showed that ensemble DT learning approach can identify potentially dangerous states with higher
accuracy than other learning techniques such as neural networks and support vector machine..
Keywords: electric power system, emergency, voltage instability, machine learning, security assessment
1. INTRODUCTION
Power system security assessment is one of the pressing problems in the modern power engineering. The trends towards
liberalization and the need to increase electricity transmission due to growing loads and generation expansion make
existing power companies operate their electrical networks in critical conditions, close to their admissible security
limits [1]. In such conditions the unforeseen excess disturbances, weak connections, hidden defects of the relay
protection system and automated devices, human factors as well as a great amount of other factors can cause a drop in
the system security or even the development of catastrophic accidents.
In recent years, voltage security problems are one of current key issues in large power systems. The main reason for this
are the improvements of protection devices as well as generators speed and voltage regulators and static VAR
compensators, which have increased the transient stability limits of power flows, allowing more power to be transferred
over longer distances. The reactive compensation problems resulting from higher active power flows and consequently
higher reactive losses have led to making the appropriate control of high voltage problematic in extreme situations,
leading to voltage instabilities which have caused recent large blackouts in North America in 2003, Russia in 2005,
Europe in 2003 and 2006, and India in 2012.
For the time being there is a wide spectrum of approaches and tools for the security assessment. All the variety of the
methods can be divided into: (1) traditional approaches based on a detailed modeling of potential disturbances in
electric power systems and numerical calculations of nonlinear capacity equations [2, 3]; and (2) intelligent approaches,
which involve the artificial intelligence algorithms learning on a limited set of power system states, such as artificial
neural networks (ANNs), support vector machine (SVM), decision trees (DTs), etc. [1, 4, 5].
This research employs the ensemble methods on the basis of DTs for on-line voltage security assessment. Among
attractive aspects of the trees, we mention their ability to uncover the intrinsic mechanism governing physical
processes, and to provide a clear description in terms of tractable system parameters. As compared with other machine
learning methods, in particular to ANNs and SVM, the decision tree approach produces at least as reliable classifiers.
The calculations involved the different DT's such as C4.5 decision tree, Classification and Regression Tree (CART),
bagged CART, Random Forest (RF), Extra Trees (ET) and Stochastic Gradient Descent tree (SGD). The effectiveness
of their application is confirmed by a great number of calculations on the basis of the IEEE 118 power system. The
suggested approach is implemented in the free software environment R intended for calculations with an open-source
code.
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2. PROBLEM STATEMENT
2.1 Power system security and blackouts
Security is an ability of electric power system to withstand sudden disturbances without unforeseen effects on the
electricity consumers. It is provided by control capabilities of power systems. In the operational practices the required
level of security can be achieved by both the preventive control actions (before a disturbance) and the emergency
control actions (after disturbance). Control in the pre-emergency conditions is mainly a responsibility of the operational
dispatching (security) control. At the same time there can be situations where the speed of power system control by the
dispatching personnel appears to be insufficient to avoid dangerous situations. The challenge here is to identify preemergency conditions using enormous amounts of data with incomplete and distorted alarm patterns. As all alarm
states leading to large-scale blackouts are unique, there is no algorithm to identify such states. The problem gets
complicated by the fact that the security limit of electric power system constantly changes, therefore fast methods for
real time security monitoring are required to analyze the current level of security and accurately trace the limit and
detect the most vulnerable regions along it.
Several studies identified voltage instability and cascade overload are the major incidents in the progression of
blackouts [6]-[8]. The leading idea of the pre-emergency control concept is that the voltage instability following the
emergency disturbance which accompanies many system emergencies does not develop as fast as the transient one
(typically voltage collapse takes several minutes whereas electromechanical loss of synchronism takes only a few
seconds). Thus, when the phase of slow emergency development comes (fig. 1), the balance between generation and
consumption is maintained for a long time and this makes it possible to detect the potentially critical states after the
contingency.
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3. PROPOSED METHOD
The concept of an intelligent system for early detection of pre-emergency states in the electric power system as an
option of the preventive operation and pre-emergency control is considered in [11]. The suggested system represents a
link between the operational dispatching control and emergency control, and aims to early warn and prevent dangerous
conditions and emergency situations before they lead to a large system blackout (Fig. 2).
Prediction +
manual control
Disturbance +
automatic control
Operational
Emergency
control
control
Preventive
emergency
control
Prediction +
preventive control
Figure 2 The proposed approach to system monitoring and control
Page 17
The decision tree technique is an effective supervised data mining tool to solve the classification problems in high data
dimensions (i.e. in the case of PMU data using). For a created database consisting of different cases that are represented
by a vector of predictors (or variables) along with an objective, a DT is designed for successful classifications of this
objective by using only a small number of these predictors. The decision tree structure is usually binary and there are
two types of nodes in such a DT. For each internal node, a question or critical splitting rule is asked to decide which
successor the classification process should drop into. The splitting rule could be numerical by comparing the variable
value with a threshold, or categorical by checking whether the current value belongs to a specific data set. For each
terminal node, a classification result is assigned in terms of the majority class of the objective, e.g., secure or
insecure. Depending on the DT method applied each decision rule will be trained by its subsampling according to the
bagging and boosting principles. The final decision on the classification of any power system state is made within the
generalized classifier according to different principles simple majority voting, weighted voting or by choosing the
most competent decision sample rule.
3.2The proposed ensemble DTs learning approach
Managing a modern grid in real time requires much more automatic monitoring and far greater interaction among
human operators, emergency control systems, communications networks and data-gathering sensors that need to be
deployed everywhere in power plants and substations. Therefore, the proposed decision tree-based approach is
concerned with the real time identification of alarm states that are dangerous for the system security.
In this paper, novel semi-automated technique based on ensemble DTs learning is proposed for on-line voltage security
assessment (Fig. 3). The purpose of this work is to solve a voltage security assessment problem of a power system with
an ensemble DT learning approach by means of classification. The primary principle of the approach lies in the
mathematical model learning on the basis of the ensemble method of classification to automatically make a sufficiently
accurate assessment of the power system conditions according to the criterion secure/unsecure on the basis of
significant classification attributes of a power system state, for example active and reactive power flows, bus voltage,
etc. A great amount of such attributes are obtained on the basis of randomly generated data sample consisting of a set of
really possible states of electric power system [4]. In the paper, events are all generated by offline simulations using the
MATLAB/ Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT) environment.
We investigated the different DT models with using a general scheme, which is presented in Fig. 3. Multiple DTs
models are first trained offline using the resampling cross-validation method (Fig. 4). The DT learning algorithm is
implemented using C4.5 decision tree, CART, bagged CART, Random Forest, Extra Trees and SGD tree. For each
candidate tuning parameter combination, a DT model is fit to each resampled data set and is used to predict the
corresponding held out samples. The resampling performance is estimated by aggregating the results of each hold-out
sample set. Resampling methods try to inject variation in the system to approximate the models performance on
future samples. These performance estimates are used to evaluate which combination(s) of the tuning parameters are
appropriate. Once the final tuning values are assigned, the final model is refit using the entire training set. The best
model from each DT technique is selected to be the candidate model with the largest accuracy or the lowest
misclassification cost.
Data generation
Vol tage, lo ads, po wer flo w et c.
Data collection
New dataset
D T1 m o del (i)
.
DT1 m o d el (k)
D T1 m o del (i)
.
D T1 m o del (k)
D T1 m o del
(bestl)
DT2 m o del
(b est)
DTn m o del
(best )
Performance estimator
(the lar gest accur acy, the low est m isclassification co st , RO C)
Final DT model
Securit y ind ex
Figure 3 A general scheme of a semi-automated ensemble DT-based technique for online power system security
assessment
Page 18
4. RESULTS
The feasibility of the approach in a proof-of-concept has been demonstrated on the IEEE 118 power system consisting
of more than 118 buses, 54 generators, and 186 transmission lines (Fig. 5a). An open-source environment R with caret
package is used as a computing environment for proposed ensemble learning models design and testing. Operating
conditions are all generated using MATLAB/PSAT.
4.1Data base generation
To obtain the data base composed of 6877 states, each of the prefault normal or heavy load states was combined with
the possible disturbances (Fig. 5b). The 490 initial candidate attributes such as active and reactive power flow, voltages
used to characterize the power system states. These have been simulated with a variable step the MATLAB/PSAT
quasi-dynamic simulation program, which computed the attribute values and allowed us to classify based on the
security index the scenarios as normal, alarm, emergency (corr.) and emergency (non-corr.).
Page 19
Voltage, p.u.
1
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0
50
100
150
200
250
States
Figure 5 Voltage pattern of the 90 stressed and emergency operating conditions in the IEEE 118 system.
The load model was represented by static characteristics depending on voltage. When critical values of voltage are
achieved the load is automatically transferred to shunts. The method of a proportional increase in load at all nodes of
the test scheme was optimized for the security analysis in such a way that the initial condition for each emergency
disturbance is a stable condition closest to it, from those calculated. Thus, at each stage of an increase in the IEEE test
scheme load the random and dependent discrete events (primary disturbances) are modelled by the N-1 reliability
principle.
4.3Estimating Performance for Classification
In current paper we need to use proper performance measurement metrics for classification problems. We used the
following metrics: (1) the overall accuracy of a model indicates how well the model predicts the actual data; and (2) the
Kappa statistic is a measure of concordance for categorical data that measures agreement relative to what would be
expected by chance. In other words, the Kappa statistic takes into account the expected error rate
4.4DT Training and Performance
Ensemble and single trees methods have been built for classifying the power system states, for various candidate
attributes and four different security classifications. The models were trained on 6877 samples dataset and tested on
1715 samples. Namely, the following state-of-art classification techniques were tested: C4.5 decision tree, CART,
BCART, RF, ET and SGB method. For comparison purpose with other learning techniques, as such multilayer
perceptron (MLP), support vector machine (SVM) and self-organized Kohonen network (SOM) were also trained and
tested using the proposed method. As previously mentioned, the optimal model from each technique is selected to be
the candidate model with the largest accuracy. If more than one tuning parameter is best then the function will try to
choose the combination that corresponds to the least complex model. For example, for the Extra Tree technique, mtry
was estimated to be 353 and numRandomCuts = 5 appears to be optimal (Fig. 6).
1
2
3
4
# Random Cuts
5
0.989
0.988
0.987
0.986
0.985
0.984
0.983
100
200
300
400
Figure 6 The relationship between the number of Extra Tree technique components and the resampled estimate of the
area under the cross-validation.
Page 20
Table 1 shows comparison of accuracy achieved by the classification learning techniques. From Table 1, the
comparison indicates that Random Forest and Extra Tree models are "best" performance techniques in detecting
dangerous states in the IEEE 118 test system. As footnote its to be noted that all obtained accuracy values are close.
However, some of the DT models enjoy additional useful properties. For example Extra Trees needs less memory
comparing with classical Random Forest, but comparable with Stohastical gradient boosting.
Table 1: Results of an automatic procedure for finding an optimal model of voltage security assessment
Security
monitoring models
Algorithms
Decision trees
4.5
CART
Random Forest
Extra Trees
Stochastic Gradient Descent
Metrics, %
Accuracy
Kappa index
98,48
97,59
94,98
97,25
98,89
98,22
98,81
98,21
98,81
98,26
Neural network
models
Kohonen network
93,38
90,07
Multi-layer perceptron
89,91
88,81
Support vector
machine
Radial function
97,33
97,01
Fig. 7 shows variable importance for all classes obtained by computing of mean Gini index decrease. The classification
trees select voltages under normal states as the most important attributes for security monitoring and assessment. It may
be explained by the fact that the voltage sag observed in the power system state reflects proportional increase in load,
when the static characteristics of the load model depend on voltage. Under alarm and emergency states, the active and
reactive power flow attributes were selected in preference to voltages. A possible explanation lies in the fact that this
security criterion is more preventive like.
We also demonstrated the feasibility of dealing with incomplete and distorted data. Taking into consideration SCADA
malfunctions, the corrupted patterns were used to train ensemble classification trees. The results showed that the test
error rate did not changed even if 50% of gaps (Tab. 2).
Figure 7 Variable importance for all classes obtained by computing of mean Gini index decrease.
Page 21
Time, s.
Test error, %
10
0.0123
0.93
30
0.0411
0.93
50
0.0514
0.93
The results in this Section indicate that the best performance on the test set using the final DT model (Random Forest),
the accuracy of which is 98.89%. In other words, there are 1.11% cases misclassified using this tree model. By
periodically including new and unknown system states into the database, DTs are updated to learn more useful
information for improving robustness and the classification accuracy can be effectively increased. The proposed semiautomated method for online security assessment should work well for all kinds of unforeseen operating conditions no
matter how the critical system parameters are distributed.
5. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents a novel semi-automated method for on-line security assessment using DTs. Multiple DTs, such as
Random Forest, CART, Extra Trees etc., are first trained offline using the resampling cross-validation method.
Resampling the training samples allows us to know when we are making poor choices for the values of DT tuning
parameters. The best model from the DT techniques is selected based on its performance. For the on-line applications,
the final the best of the best DT is used as the candidate technique with the best performance. If required, the final
DT checked and updated in order to account for new changing system states as accurately as possible.
Operating conditions for the IEEE 118 system are generated to represent the stressed system states from different load
system levels using MATLAB/PSAT. Power system security is analyzed using the developed security analysis tool to
obtain a security label, such as "normal", "alarm", "emergency (correctable)" and "emergency (non-correctable)" for
each case following a severe contingency. The results showed that the set of classification features such as
active/reactive power values generated and consumed in each bus system in the pre-emergency condition, carries
sufficient information concerning the reliability of the system. However, in the case of voltage instability analysis, the
feature space should be extended with readings of voltages at the nodes, as well as with cross-flows of active and
reactive power relations.
The results showed that ensemble DT learning approach can identify potential dangerous states with higher accuracy
than others single learnings techniques such as MLP, SOM and SVM, and, if required, the final DT model can
produce an alarm for triggering emergency and protection systems.
References
[1] D. Panasetsky, D. Tomin, N. Voropai, V. Kurbatsky, A. Zhukov, D. Sidorov, Development of software for
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PowerTech Conf., IEEE PES, Eindhoven, pp. 1-6, 2015.
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of large energy systems, Saint-Petersburg, pp. 634-643, 2014. (in Russian).
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[4] L. Wehenkel, Machine Learning Approaches to Power System Security Assessment. PhD dissertation, University
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[9] N. Tomin, M. Negnevitsky, Ch. Rehtanz Preventing Large-Scale Emergencies in Modern Power Systems: AI
Approach, Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics, Vol. 18, No.5, pp. 604614, 2014
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[11] M. Negnevitsky, N. Voropai, V. Kurbatsky, N. Tomin, and D. Panasetsky, Development of an Intelligent System
for Preventing Large-Scale Emergencies in Power Systems, IEEE/PES General Meeting, Vancouver, BC, Canada,
2013
AUTHOR
Nikita V. Tomin is a Senior Research Fellow at the Energy Systems Institute of the Russian
Academy of Science (ESI SB RAS), Irkutsk, Russia. In 2007 he defended his PhD thesis at the
ESI SB RAS. His interests are intelligent state variables forecasting, power system analysis,
preventive emergency control and intelligent systems applications in power systems. N.V.
Tomin was visiting research fellow in TU Dortmund University (Germany), University of
Tasmania (Australia). He is Vice-Chairperson of the IEEE PES Russian (Siberia) Chapter.
N.V. Tomin is the author and co-author of more than 100 scientific papers.
Victor G. Kurbatsky (M08) is Professor, Leading Research Fellow at the Energy Systems
Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk, Russia. Victor Kurbatsky received his
Ph.D degree at SibNIIE (Novosibirsk) in 1984 and Doctor of Technical Sciences at the Energy
Systems Institute (Irkutsk) in 1997. His research interests include: electromagnetic
compatibility and power quality in electric networks, application of artificial intelligence
techniques in power systems. He is the author of several monographs and manuals and more
than 300 scientific papers.
Denis N. Sidorov (Ph.D.'99, Dr. habil.'14) was born in Irkutsk, Russia, in 1974. He gained
the Ph.D. and Dr. habil. degrees in 1999 and 2014, respectively, from Irkutsk State
University, Russia. Since 2000, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Trinity
College Dublin and Universit de Technologie de Compigne. He gained his industrial
experience at ASTI Holdings Pte Ltd, Singapore. He was Visiting Professor at Tampere
University of Technology, Siegen University. Since 2014, he is a Leading Researcher at
Energy Systems Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include:
DSP, power quality, inter-area oscillations, integral and differential equations theory,
machine learning methods and forecasting. Dr. Sidorov is the author of more than 120 scientific papers and two
monographs.
Aleksei V. Zhukov was born in Irkutsk, Russia, in 1991. He gained the MSc degrees in
2013 from Irkutsk State University, Russia. Since 2014, he is an engineer at Energy Systems
Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. His research interests include: machine learning
algorithms and methods, intelligent systems applications in power systems and time series
forecasting. A.V. Zhukov is the author and co-author of more than 10 scientific papers.
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References
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References
[12] A. Bonnaccorsi, On the Relationship between Firm Size and Export Intensity, Journal of International Business
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Proceedings of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 1951-1957, 1999. (conference style)
[15] H.H. Crokell, Specialization and International Competitiveness, in Managing the Multinational Subsidiary, H.
Etemad and L. S, Sulude (eds.), Croom-Helm, London, 1986. (book chapter style)
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2000. (technical report style)
[17] J. Geralds, "Sega Ends Production of Dreamcast," vnunet.com, para. 2, Jan. 31, 2001. [Online]. Available:
http://nl1.vnunet.com/news/1116995. [Accessed: Sept. 12, 2004]. (General Internet site)
AUTHOR
Taro Denshi received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Shibaura Institute of Technology in
1997 and 1999, respectively. During 1997-1999, he stayed in Communications Research Laboratory (CRL), Ministry of
Posts and Telecommunications of Japan to study digital beam forming antennas, mobile satellite communication
systems, and wireless access network using stratospheric platforms. He now with DDI Tokyo Pocket Telephone, Inc.
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