Learning a Generalized Model for Substation Level Voltage Estimation in Distribution Networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Za'ter, Muhy Eddin, Hodge, Bri-Mathias
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
author_facet Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
contents Accurate voltage estimation in distribution networks is critical for real-time monitoring and increasing the reliability of the grid. As DER penetration and distribution level voltage variability increase, robust distribution system state estimation (DSSE) has become more essential to maintain safe and efficient operations. Traditional DSSE techniques, however, struggle with sparse measurements and the scale of modern feeders, limiting their scalability to large networks. This paper presents a hierarchical graph neural network for substation-level voltage estimation that exploits both electrical topology and physical features, while remaining robust to the low observability levels common to real-world distribution networks. Leveraging the public SMART-DS datasets, the model is trained and evaluated on thousands of buses across multiple substations and DER penetration scenarios. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves up to 2 times lower RMSE than alternative data-driven models, and maintains high accuracy with as little as 1\% measurement coverage. The results highlight the potential of GNNs to enable scalable, reproducible, and data-driven voltage monitoring for distribution systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16063
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning a Generalized Model for Substation Level Voltage Estimation in Distribution Networks
Za'ter, Muhy Eddin
Hodge, Bri-Mathias
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Systems and Control
Accurate voltage estimation in distribution networks is critical for real-time monitoring and increasing the reliability of the grid. As DER penetration and distribution level voltage variability increase, robust distribution system state estimation (DSSE) has become more essential to maintain safe and efficient operations. Traditional DSSE techniques, however, struggle with sparse measurements and the scale of modern feeders, limiting their scalability to large networks. This paper presents a hierarchical graph neural network for substation-level voltage estimation that exploits both electrical topology and physical features, while remaining robust to the low observability levels common to real-world distribution networks. Leveraging the public SMART-DS datasets, the model is trained and evaluated on thousands of buses across multiple substations and DER penetration scenarios. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves up to 2 times lower RMSE than alternative data-driven models, and maintains high accuracy with as little as 1\% measurement coverage. The results highlight the potential of GNNs to enable scalable, reproducible, and data-driven voltage monitoring for distribution systems.
title Learning a Generalized Model for Substation Level Voltage Estimation in Distribution Networks
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16063