The goal of this challenge is to to solve the electric power grid control problem using a reinforcement learning based approach. Participants are asked to design a reinforcement learning agent using tools and algorithms of their choice. The designed agents are supposed to learn a policy that maximizes the final score returned by the simulator, the possible actions at a given timestep being either switching a line status or changing the line interconnections. Indeed, we provide a simulation environement consisting of a power grid simulator along with a set of chronics. We use pypownet, an open-source power grid simulator developed by Marvin Lerousseau, that simulates the behaviour of a power grid of any given characterics subject to a set of external constraints governed by the given chronics. Samples of such chronics can be found under the sample_data directory.

We also provide a set of baselines solutions:

• A Do Nothing agent, which does not take actions at all.

• A RandomLineSwitch agent, which randomly switches the status of one random power line per timestep (if the random line is previously online, switch it off, otherwise switch it on

• A RandomNodeSplitting agent, which selects a random switch configuration such that switched elements of the selected substations change the node within the substation on which they are directly wired.

Action space

Typically on natiowide power grids, dispatchers use two types of physical actions:

• switching ON or OFF some power lines
• switching the nodes on which elements, such as productions, consumptions, or power lines, are connected within their substation

See Random Agent for an example of action.

Installation

Using Docker

Retrieve the Docker image:

docker pull mok0na/l2rpn:2.0

Retrieve the notebook README.ipynb to help you start this competition. It is available in the starting kit to download from the Files tab in the Partipate tab.

Download starting-kit and public data

unzip starting_kit -d starting-kit
cp -r starting-kit ~/aux

Run the jupyter notebook:

docker run --name l2rpn -it -p 5000:8888 -v ~/aux:/home/aux mok0na/l2rpn:2.0 jupyter notebook --ip 0.0.0.0 --notebook-dir=/home/aux --allow-root

Open the link and replace the port 5000 instead of 8888. e.g. : http://127.0.0.1:5000/?token=2b4e492be2f542b1ed5a645fa2cfbedcff9e67d50bb35380

To reuse the docker : restart the docker and open the link http://127.0.0.1:5000

docker start l2rpn


The submission zip is in your local directory ~/aux

python ingestion_program/ingestion.py public_data input_data/res ingestion_program example_submission

Score the model

python scoring_program/evaluate.py input_data output

Usage

• The file README.ipynb contains step-by-step instructions on how to create a custom agent and use it on the simulator.
• Modify example_submission.py to provide a better model The structure of the file submission.py should be:

          import pypownet.env
          import pypownet.agent
  
  
          class Submission(pypownet.agent.Agent):
              def __init__(self, environment):
                  super().__init__(environment)
                  assert isinstance(environment, pypownet.env.RunEnv)
                  self.environment = environment
  
              def act(self, observation):
                  """Produces an action given an observation of the environment.
  
                  Takes as argument an observation of the current state, and returns the chosen action."""
                  # Sanity check: an observation is a structured object defined in the environment file.
                  assert isinstance(observation, pypownet.env.RunEnv.Observation)
  
                  # Implement your policy here.
                  return None

Making a submission

Essentially, a submission should be a ZIP file containing at least these two files:

• submission.py: code (i.e. agent) submitted by a challenger
• metadata: file giving the instruction to Codalab on how to process the submission (should never be changed)

Upon reception of the challenger's submission, Codalab will see the metadata file (mandatory) and consider the submission of the participant as a code submission (contrary to results submission) and run the programs to process it. The folder containing both submission.py and metadata should then be zipped (the output name is not important). Then, on Codalab:

• Go to the competition homepage
• Click on "Participate"
• Click on "Submit / View Results"
• Click on "Submit", select the latter submission zip

Codalab will take some time to process the submission, and will print the scores on the same page (after refresh).

References and credits:
Founder of pypownet was Marvin Lerousseau. The competition protocol was designed by Isabelle Guyon. Our mentors are Balthazar Donon and Antoine Marot. Pypownet, 2017. https://github.com/MarvinLer/pypownet. The baseline methods were inspired by work performed by Kimang Khun.

Authors:
pypowteam l2rpn@chalearn.org
Mohamed Khalil Jabri, Léa-Marie Lam-Yee-Mui, Youcef Madji,Luca Veyrin-Forrer, Tingting Wang, Yacine Yakoubi