Data-driven Operation of the Resilient Electric Grid: A Case of COVID-19

TL;DR

This paper reviews COVID-19's impact on power grid operations and introduces NLP-based machine learning tools to enhance grid resilience during pandemics and other extreme events.

Contribution

It presents a novel NLP-driven machine learning approach for improving power grid resilience amid pandemic-related disruptions.

Findings

Enhanced digitalization improves network visibility.

NLP tools assist in decision support during crises.

Machine learning enhances grid automation and resilience.

Abstract

Electrical energy is a vital part of modern life, and expectations for grid resilience to allow a continuous and reliable energy supply has tremendously increased even during adverse events (e.g., Ukraine cyber-attack, Hurricane Maria). The global pandemic COVID-19 has raised the electric energy reliability risk due to potential workforce disruptions, supply chain interruptions, and increased possible cybersecurity threats. The pandemic introduces a significant degree of uncertainly to the grid operation in the presence of other extreme events like natural disasters, unprecedented outages, aging power grids, high proliferation of distributed generation, and cyber-attacks. This situation increases the need for measures for the resiliency of power grids to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic as well as simultaneous extreme events. Solutions to manage such an adverse scenario will be multi-fold: a) emergency planning and organizational support, b) following safety protocol, c) utilizing enhanced automation and sensing for situational awareness, and d) integration of advanced technologies and data points for ML-driven enhanced decision support. Enhanced digitalization and automation resulted in better network visibility at various levels, including generation, transmission, and distribution. These data or information can be utilized to take advantage of advanced machine learning techniques for automation and increased power grid resilience. In this paper, a) we review the impact of COVID-19 on power grid operations and actions taken by operators/organizations to minimize the impact of COVID-19, and b) we have presented the recently developed tool and concepts using natural language processing (NLP) in the domain of machine learning and artificial intelligence that can be used for increasing resiliency of power systems in normal and in extreme scenarios such as COVID-19 pandemics.