Evaluating Machine Learning for Improving Power Grid Reliability

Ensuring reliability as the electrical grid morphs into the “smart grid” will require innovations in how we assess the state of the grid, for the purpose of proactive maintenance, rather than reactive maintenance – in the future, we will not only react to failures, but also try to anticipate and avoid them using predictive modeling (machine learning) techniques. To help in meeting this challenge, we present the Neutral Online Visualization-aided Autonomic evaluation framework (NOVA) for evaluating machine learning algorithms for preventive maintenance on the electrical grid. NOVA has three stages provided through a unified user interface: evaluation of input data quality, evaluation of machine learning results, and evaluation of the reliability improvement of the power grid. A prototype version of NOVA has been deployed for the power grid in New York City, and it is able to evaluate machine learning systems effectively and efficiently. Appearing in the ICML 2011 Workshop on Machine Learning for Global Challenges, Bellevue, WA, USA, 2011. Copyright 2011 by the author(s)/owner(s).