Papers for
smart grid technology developers
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.
State estimation improves with tabular foundation models in power grids
State Estimation as In-context Tabular Prediction
Abstract: This letter poses state estimation (SE) as an in-context tabular prediction (ICTP) problem. The key idea is a tabular arrangement in which historical measurement vectors and corresponding state estimates serve as the context, and a new measurement vector forms the query for which we predict a state vector. We propose to use tabular foundation models (TFMs), pretrained on synthetic data, whose weights are never updated, so power system data is needed only as context. With frozen TFM weights we estimate the state of 14-, 30-, 33-, 70-, and 118-bus transmission and distribution networks, and do so where weighted least squares (WLS) fails or degrades, under low observability and with bad data. ICTP errors are 11 to 57$\times$ below the per-bus average of the context at full metering, and 1.3 to 4.0$\times$ below it with only 5% of measurements available. With measurements at six buses biased by 8$σ$, the ICTP angle error rises 1.8 to 5.0$\times$ over its bias-free value against 2.5 to 12.7$\times$ for WLS with bad-data detection. Without retraining, ICTP has lower voltage error than DSS$^2$ on both of its feeders, and lower than a retrained TAPINE on two of three reconfiguration sets.
Load forecasting improves by mixing shared and local demand patterns
From Shared Demand Patterns to Local Uncertainty: Probabilistic Load Forecasting by Mixing Compact Adaptations
Abstract: Probabilistic load forecasting has been widely studied for power-system operation and planning, but customer- and transformer-level forecasting introduces a distinct scalability challenge. At these levels, load uncertainty is strongly affected by customer behavior, weather, and mixed load composition, making it difficult for a single shared model to capture heterogeneous patterns. Using separate probabilistic models can improve local accuracy, but becomes costly to train, store, update, and validate at scale. To address this challenge, we develop a scalable customer-aware forecasting framework that learns common demand behavior through a shared model while adapting only a compact subset of parameters. Rather than using an independent model for each load or assigning each load to a specialized model, the proposed design learns a small bank of low-dimensional adaptation components and allows each load to combine them according to its forecasting characteristics. This preserves shared knowledge across customers while providing sufficient flexibility for heterogeneous and mixed load compositions. Experiments on 590 load profiles from the SMART-DS dataset show consistent improvements in deterministic accuracy and probabilistic quality over statistical, neural-network, Transformer-based, and pretrained time-series baselines, while retaining low storage and inference costs.
Machine learning improves fault detection in electrical power grids
A Systematic Evaluation of Machine Learning Methods for Fault Detection and Line Identification in Electrical Power Grids
Abstract: The integration of renewable energy sources into the electrical grid introduces complex challenges in fault detection and coordination of grid recovery mechanisms. Traditional relay protection systems, which operate based on static rules and predefined thresholds, are inadequate for addressing these challenges, particularly in detecting and isolating faults such as short circuits. Consequently, the conventional methodologies applied to electrical network protection frequently fail to achieve optimal performance in fault detection, especially in terms of adherence to safety standards and the selective limitation of damage. Recent research indicates that machine learning (ML)-based approaches can effectively tackle these issues; however, variations in grid configurations and analysis windows have impeded consistent comparative assessments. In this study, we assess the efficacy of various ML models in detecting electrical faults and pinpointing defective transmission lines within a 10 ms measurement interval - a critical time-frame for real-time operational viability, for the first time. The most effective model attained an F1 score of 0.991 +/- 0.018 and demonstrated a processing time of 0.342ms +/- 0.509ms.