Intelligent monitoring and control in transmission and distribution networks

A fundamental component of a smart grid is transmission and distribution system monitoring and control. Accurate load, power flow and voltage estimation is required for real time generation capacity dispatching and congestion management in wide area power systems or in networks with distributed generation. In electrical networks, bus voltage levels, load, generation and branch power flows are interdependent, and ones can be determined if others are known. This is a problem that can be solved using the approximation capabilities of artificial neural networks (ANNs). This paper explores the possibility of replacing the classic estimation algorithms in voltage and power flow estimation with ANN approaches, using available data from the Romanian power system.