Uncertainty-aware Predict-Then-Optimize Framework for Equitable Post-Disaster Power Restoration

TL;DR

This paper introduces an uncertainty-aware framework for equitable power restoration after disasters, combining predictive modeling and reinforcement learning to improve efficiency and fairness across communities.

Contribution

It proposes a novel predict-then-optimize approach with equity-aware uncertainty modeling and adaptive decision-making for disaster recovery.

Findings

Reduces average outage duration by 3.60%

Decreases community inequity by 14.19%

Outperforms state-of-the-art baselines

Abstract

The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, highlights the urgent need for efficient and equitable power system restoration. Many electricity providers make restoration decisions primarily based on the volume of power restoration requests from each region. However, our data-driven analysis reveals significant disparities in request submission volume, as disadvantaged communities tend to submit fewer restoration requests. This disparity makes the current restoration solution inequitable, leaving these communities vulnerable to extended power outages. To address this, we aim to propose an equity-aware power restoration strategy that balances both restoration efficiency and equity across communities. However, achieving this goal is challenging for two reasons: the difficulty of predicting repair durations under dataset heteroscedasticity, and the tendency of reinforcement learning agents to favor low-uncertainty actions, which potentially undermine equity. To overcome these challenges, we design a predict-then-optimize framework called EPOPR with two key components: (1) Equity-Conformalized Quantile Regression for uncertainty-aware repair duration prediction, and (2) Spatial-Temporal Attentional RL that adapts to varying uncertainty levels across regions for equitable decision-making. Experimental results show that our EPOPR effectively reduces the average power outage duration by 3.60% and decreases inequity between different communities by 14.19% compared to state-of-the-art baselines.