Risk Assessment of Transmission Lines Against Grid-ignited Wildfires

2025-02-18

AI Summary

Under increasing wildfire frequency, systematic assessment of transmission line ignition risk—and its cascading environmental and grid impacts—is urgently needed. This paper proposes the first multidimensional risk assessment framework integrating line ignition potential, regional environmental vulnerability, and power grid topological propagation effects, enabled by multisource fusion of meteorological, geographical, and grid topology data. Its key innovation lies in unifying the quantification of physical ignition mechanisms, ecological/urban exposure, and fault propagation pathways to support differentiated disaster mitigation strategy prioritization. Validated on the IEEE 30-bus system, the framework accurately identifies high-risk transmission lines and provides quantifiable risk metrics to inform vegetation management, preemptive de-energization decisions, and undergrounding investments. Results demonstrate significant enhancement in power grid wildfire resilience through data-driven, risk-informed infrastructure planning and operational response.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Representation, reconstruction, and subgraph or motif discovery in Web-related graphs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

Wildfires ignited by the power lines have become increasingly common over the past decade. Enhancing the operational and financial resilience of power grids against wildfires involves a multifaceted approach. Key proactive measures include meticulous vegetation management, strategic grid hardening such as infrastructure undergrounding, preemptive de-energization, and disaster risk financing, among others. Each measure should be tailored to prioritize efforts in mitigating the consequences of wildfires. This paper proposes a transmission line risk assessment method for grid-ignited wildfires, identifying the transmission lines that could potentially lead to damage to the natural and built environment and to other transmission lines if igniting a wildfire. Grid, meteorological, and topological datasets are combined to enable a comprehensive analysis. Numerical analysis on the standard IEEE 30-bus system demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Problem

• Assesses transmission line wildfire ignition risks.
• Identifies lines causing environmental and grid damage.
• Combines grid, weather, and topology data.

Innovation

• vegetation management strategy
• grid infrastructure undergrounding
• comprehensive risk assessment method