Papers for

power system engineers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

GPU and CPU solvers match machine learning for power-flow tasks

Benchmarking CPU, GPU, and ML Power-Flow Solvers from 14 to 70,000 Buses

Abstract: Learned surrogates for power-flow (PF) computation are usually motivated by speed, compared against a single CPU-based baseline. We show this comparison is fragile: across 7 open-source CPU-based solvers evaluated on identical inputs, throughput varies by roughly 2.5-3 orders of magnitude, so the choice of baseline alone can flip the conclusion. We build a benchmark spanning 9 physics-based solvers: 7 CPU-based and 2 GPU-based, including a new batched GPU solver, gumsim2grid - and 3 published ML surrogates, evaluated under a shared, independently implemented KCL-mismatch check across 15 grids from 14 to 70,000 buses. On the PF task itself, a sufficiently parallelized CPU solver or gpusim2grid matches or exceeds the throughput of the ML surrogates we test while remaining orders of magnitude more accurate; we find no evidence that these GNN-style surrogates are yet competitive for PF specifically, though prior work reports genuine gains on related but more combinatorial tasks such as optimal power flow or power grid control. Beyond this finding, we hope the benchmark suite, code and reference evaluator released at https://github.com/Grid2op/gpusim2grid helps close a broader reproducibility gap in this space, where batched GPU-based PF solvers are rarely open-sourced or evaluated against a common set of baselines.

Tue 20 OctDistributed, Parallel, and Cluster ComputingSoftware Engineering
The gist
Calculating power flow in electrical grids is important but can be slow. The authors show that some traditional computer solvers running on CPUs and GPUs can be as fast or faster than new machine learning methods while being more accurate. They tested many solvers on different grid sizes and found the choice of comparison baseline changes how well machine learning looks. Their work includes releasing code and benchmarks to help others fairly test these methods.
Open → 2610.27930v1

Compact models classify electrical faults nearly perfectly with limited data

One-Cycle Fault Classification and Faulted-Line Identification on the PROTECT-90 Dataset: An Initial Application Benchmark

Abstract: Open electromagnetic-transient datasets are beginning to make reproducible learning-based protection studies possible, but the practical use of these datasets still requires application-level benchmarks that define timing, sensing, and validation assumptions. This paper presents an initial application benchmark on the recently released PROTECT-90 dataset for two protection-oriented tasks: fault-type classification and discrete faulted-line identification. A compact one-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) is evaluated using post-inception windows of 0.25, 0.5, 1, and 2 cycles under strict episode-wise splitting. A non-convolutional multilayer perceptron (MLP) is also trained as an architecture-control baseline. The results show that both tasks are nearly saturated under full observability, with one-cycle test accuracies of 99.84% for fault type and 100.00% for line identification. The main performance variation appears under reduced observability: current-only inputs preserve line identification accuracy at 100.00%, whereas voltage-only inputs reduce line identification accuracy to 53.09% with the CNN and 50.57% with the MLP. This indicates that the limiting factor is measurement information rather than neural architecture. Additional stratified checks show stable performance across topology states and fault-resistance bins, while CPU inference contributes only 0.528 ms to the one-cycle total decision time of 20.53 ms.

Fri 2 OctMachine Learning
The gist
Finding electrical faults quickly and accurately in power lines is key to keeping electricity safe and stable. The authors tested small neural networks on a new dataset called PROTECT-90, focusing on detecting fault types and the exact faulty line. Their models achieved almost perfect accuracy using short one-cycle time windows when full data was available. However, accuracy dropped when only voltage data was used, showing data type matters more than the model design. The work sets a benchmark for applying machine learning to electrical fault detection using this dataset.
Open → 2610.04155v1

Power flow and optimization solved interactively in web browsers

Interactive Power Flow in the Browser

Abstract: This paper introduces tellegen, an open source framework for interactive power flow (PF) and optimal power flow (OPF) studies that run in the browser. This provides intuitive and democratized access to power system analysis tools compiled to WebAssembly. A user can drag and drop a case file, click and drag to change a nodal demand or line rating, preview the impacts via sensitivity analysis, and obtain an exact re-solve on release. User case files and results stay entirely on the device: tellegen transmits zero Critical Energy/Electric Infrastructure Information (CEII). The framework comprises a core numerical engine for PF and OPF, reusable browser components, saved studies, and structured WebMCP tools for agentic interaction. We evaluate the transmission OPF solver by comparing objectives with PGLib baselines; the distribution PF solver by comparing voltages and currents with OpenDSS; and the WebAssembly execution times by comparing with PowerModels.jl. On realistic synthetic grids, WebAssembly OPF solves take only 25-43% longer than native binary solves. The implementation shows how an engineer can distribute an executable numerical study as a URL, reducing installation and hosting requirements while keeping case data local.

Thu 1 OctHuman-Computer InteractionMathematical Software
The gist
Power system engineers usually need special software to analyze electrical grids, which can be hard to install and use. The authors created tellegen, a tool that runs entirely in a web browser, letting anyone easily upload power grid cases and interactively change settings to see the effects instantly. All data stays on the user's device, so sensitive information is safe. Their tests show this browser-based tool performs nearly as fast and accurately as traditional software.
Open → 2610.01922v1

Benchmark creates standard tests for machine learning in power systems

EvEMTBench: An Open Benchmark for Machine Learning in Power System Protection

Abstract: Studies of machine-learning-based power system protection are difficult to compare because task definitions, measurement access, data partitions, metrics, and generalization conditions often differ. EvEMTBench addresses this gap with an open, executable, and versioned benchmark that fixes these evaluation choices while leaving model design open. Across four grids spanning 20-345 kV, it defines 12 protection and event-analysis functions instantiated as 24 scored tasks and supports structured evaluation across observability conditions, predefined distribution shifts, and zero-shot and fine-tuned cross-grid transfer. Committed partitions, leakage controls, and reproducible reporting provide a common basis for comparing future methods. A reference evaluation spanning trivial, conventional, feature-based, and deep-learning baselines shows that wider observability is not uniformly beneficial, shifted conditions can reveal failures not apparent in-distribution, and cross-grid transfer is substantially stronger for fault detection than for fault localization. Protection-relevant diagnostics identify failure modes not apparent from primary metrics alone. EvEMTBench therefore makes generalization in machine-learning-based protection an explicit and reproducible evaluation problem.

Wed 23 SeptMachine Learning
The gist
Power systems need protection to stop problems like blackouts, but testing machine learning methods for this is hard because people use different data and tests. The authors made EvEMTBench, a shared and open set of tasks and data that everyone can use to compare their methods fairly. It covers different electrical grids and situations, showing that machine learning models don’t always improve with more data or when conditions change. This benchmark helps researchers and engineers find out where their models work well or fail, making evaluations clearer and more reliable.
Open → 2609.28149v1

Efficient broad learning speeds up harmonic analysis for electric grids

EBL: Efficient Broad Learning for Distributed Adaptive Harmonic Analysis

Abstract: Renewable energy systems and electrified transport have found widespread adoption in recent years. The integration of these non-linear loads, dominated by electric vehicle (EV) charging, however, has introduced severe harmonic distortion into the power grid, impacting the efficiency and lifetime of substation equipment and switchgear in the distribution network. Rapid and high-precision harmonic analysis has hence become a prerequisite for effective harmonic control at the source of injection. This paper proposes an Efficient Broad Learning (EBL) framework for distributed adaptive harmonic estimation. As a quantised FPGA acceleration framework for BLS-style harmonic estimation, it offers high-accuracy estimation with half-cycle input, reconfigurable flexibility enabled by the FPGA implementation, and ultra-low latency, achieving 17.4 $\times$ faster predictions than the nearest reported FPGA method. For harmonic prediction across multi-scenario charging and discharging nodes, the online transfer learning based on a closed-form solution rather than backpropagation in EBL demonstrates rapid adaptability. By exploiting bespoke quantisation and sparsity, the approach consumes 5.9\% of the LUTs on the Zynq Ultrascale+ ZU7EV FPGA, using $\approx$ 82\% of the LUTs required by the state-of-the-art FPGA-accelerated estimator.

Mon 14 SeptHardware ArchitectureMachine Learning
The gist
The increasing use of electric vehicles causes complex electrical distortions in power grids, which can damage equipment over time. The authors developed a fast and accurate way to analyze these distortions using a specialized computer chip called an FPGA. Their method quickly adapts to changing electrical conditions and uses less chip resources than previous approaches. This helps improve monitoring and control of electrical quality in distribution networks.
Open → 2609.16358v1