Applications of artificial intelligence in the electricity supply industry

Abstract

Artificial intelligence, including expert systems, fuzzy logic, neural networks and genetic algorithms, is increasingly being applied to the solution of a wide range of problems in the monitoring and operation of electricity supply systems. Following the privatization of the Electricity Supply Industry in England and Wales in 1990, there is an overriding commercial incentive for the privatized electricity companies to operate the high voltage transmission networks as economically as possible without compromizing their reliability in a climate of substantial uncertainty as to the generator prices and availabilities that are bid into the pool from day to day and the energy trading contracts that have to be implemented. These circumstances often mean that the transmission and distribution networks must operate close to their defined security limits and still be capable of surviving severe disturbances. Hence artificial intelligence is being applied to the development of online real‐time monitoring systems to assist the electricity supply companies' control room engineers. This paper reviews this field and presents two case studies.

Citation

Short, M. (1995), "Applications of artificial intelligence in the electricity supply industry", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 47 No. 6, pp. 153-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb051393