Intelligent control of energy distribution networks

Abstract

There has been continuous research in the energy distribution sector over the last years because of its significant impact in modern societies. Nonetheless, the use of high voltage power lines transport involves some risks that may be avoided with periodic reviews. The objective of this work is to reduce the number of these periodic reviews so that the maintenance cost of power lines is also reduced. This work is focused on the periodic review of transmission towers (TT) to avoid important risks, such as step and touch potentials, for humans. To reduce the number of TT to be reviewed, an organization-based agent system is proposed in conjunction with different artificial intelligence methods and algorithms. This system is able to propose a sample of TT from a selected set to be reviewed and to ensure that the whole set will have similar values without needing to review all the TT. As a result, the system provides a web application to manage all the review processes and all the TT of Spain, allowing the review companies to use the application either when they initiate a new review process for a whole line or area of TT, or when they want to place an entirely new set of TT, in which case the system would recommend the best place and the best type of structure to use.