Operational risk assessment for hydroelectric generating units using multi-head spatio-temporal attention and adaptive fuzzy clustering

A novel operational risk assessment method for hydroelectric generating units (HGUs) is presented in this article. First, a multi-head spatio-temporal attention gated network (MSTAGN) is proposed to establish an operation risk benchmark model for HGUs to reveal the intricate relationship between performance and its multiple influencing factors. In particular, MSTAGN learns complex interaction relationships among multiple influencing factors in both temporal and spatial dimensions and automatically extracts important features. Then, a nonlinear mapping function is constructed to extract the deviation of the current measured performance parameters from the predicted baseline performance parameters as the operation risk degree. On this basis, an adaptive fuzzy clustering algorithm is proposed to achieve a clear classification of the operating risk level for HGUs. The proposed method is applied in a HGU in Sichuan province, China. The results of comparative experiments demonstrate its viability and efficacy.