Adaptive Power System Emergency Control Using Deep Reinforcement Learning

Power system emergency control is generally regarded as the last safety net for grid security and resiliency. Existing emergency control schemes are usually designed offline based on either the conceived “worst” case scenario or a few typical operation scenarios. These schemes are facing significant adaptiveness and robustness issues as increasing uncertainties and variations occur in modern electrical grids. To address these challenges, this paper developed novel adaptive emergency control schemes using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) by leveraging the high-dimensional feature extraction and non-linear generalization capabilities of DRL for complex power systems. Furthermore, an open-source platform named Reinforcement Learning for Grid Control (RLGC) has been designed for the first time to assist the development and benchmarking of DRL algorithms for power system control. Details of the platform and DRL-based emergency control schemes for generator dynamic braking and under-voltage load shedding are presented. Robustness of the developed DRL method to different simulation scenarios, model parameter uncertainty and noise in the observations is investigated. Extensive case studies performed in both the two-area, four-machine system and the IEEE 39-bus system have demonstrated excellent performance and robustness of the proposed schemes.