2017 the 5th IEEE International Conference on Smart Energy Grid Engineering
Fault Diagnosis of Micro Energy Grids Using Bayesian Belief Network and Adaptive
Neuro-Fuzzy Interference System
Yahya Koraz1, Hossam A. Gabbar1,2*
1
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North,
Oshawa L1H7K4 ON, Canada
2
Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North,
Oshawa L1H7K4 ON, Canada
e-mail: Hossam.Gaber@uoit.ca
Abstract—Safety assessment of complex systems such as micro
energy grids has lately become an interesting open research
field. In this article, fault diagnosis for a micro energy grid in
the occurrence of incomplete data and expert knowledge is
discussed. A hybrid technique of Bayesian belief networks and
adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system is proposed for
fault diagnosis and safety assessment of micro energy grid
under uncertainty conditions and incomplete system’s
information. Merging adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference
system with Bayesian belief networks contributes to a reduction
of the information required for micro energy grid fault
diagnosis when compared with each method separately. Where
each method has different capability on capturing safety related
information. The proposed hybrid approach helps operation
crew to make the optimum decision. The approach depends on
expert’s knowledge more than the data from instrumentation
and control system. The demonstrative example of a micro
energy grids safety assessment is validated in this study.
Keywords-micro energy grid (MEG); risk analysis;
adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS);
bayesian belief network (BBN)
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy and environment safety concerns are becoming
the most significant worldwide issues as the prompt
depletion of fossil fuels and global warming reaches
unprecedented levels. Micro energy grids (MEGs) were
presented as advanced energy systems by increasing energy
efficiency and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions [1].
The rapid development of MEGs technologies allows
integration of more renewable energy sources (RES).
Utilizing more RES in the energy system leads to further
clean, efficient and reliable energy systems [2]. On the other
hand, it leads to more complex control and management of
energy systems. Therefore, safety assessment of MEGs is
one of the topics currently are under research. MEGs’ safely
operation is paramount for modern societies (i.e. residential,
commercial and industries) development and to the welfare
of its customers. The great northeast blackout of 1965 [3]
exposed that reliability and safety level of the energy system
has a direct impact on the public interest, safety and heavy
financial liabilities [4].
The proposed safety assessment approach for MEGs
splits analysis process into two main disciplines, i.e.
978-1-5386-1776-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 
Bayesian belief network (BBN) layer and
adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system (ANFIS)
layer. In addition, it considers the following data sets which
essential for safety analysis:
x Deterministic data-set of credible information such as
system topology, operation parameters, units
specification, etc.;
x Statistical data-historical observation of the system
operation life cycle; and
x Linguistic data–defines the system behavior by expert’s
knowledge contribution.
The main challenges associated with MEG safety
assessment are dealing with randomness, vagueness and
uncertainties. Classical methods based on the stochastic
theory, such as fault tree analysis (FTA) and hazard matrix
method, have been employed in Ref. [5] to deal with
hazardous events in MEGs.
Many fuzzy models were presented to deal with
vagueness [6] and many reasoning approaches were
illustrated to deal with uncertainties [7]. However,
integration of different safety assessment methods for
complex systems is still in the early stages.
Bayesian belief network (BBN) is extensively used in
safety assessment for systems with uncertainty and
incomplete knowledge. Therefore, BBN is the base of
different types of expert diagnosis systems in numerous
fields such as nuclear power systems operation monitoring
[8], oil and gas pipelines safety assessment [9], wind turbine
fault diagnosis [10], risk assessment of complex systems
[11].
This study introduces a hybrid-safety assessment
approach of MEG using a combination of ANFIS and BBN
techniques.
II. METHODOLOGY
The proposed approach consists of two cascaded layers
i.e. BBN layer and ANFIS layer. Where the output of the
BBN layer is the input to the ANFIS layer. Therefore, safety
assessment process runs in consequence from top to bottom
as given in Fig. 1.
Deterministic data of MEG has sufficient information to
create BBN qualitative structure for MEG diagnosis
approach. The linguistic data is mainly used to build the
ANFIS structure. The quantitative term of each node in the
BBN and ANFIS structures can be illustrated from static data
analysis, which is the conditional probability tables (CPT)
and the membership function (MF) respectively.
MEG’s Condition Measurment
instrument (I&C)
Observation
BBN
Causes
ANFIS
Decision
Diagnosis Result
Figure 1. Hybrid MEG safety assessment approach.
Figure 2. BBN structure of MEG.
Fig. 2 illustrates the BBN structure of MEG, which
consists of three layers (causes, consequences and
observation). Each layer comprises several variables named
nodes. Each node has a set of probable values that form the
conditional probability table (CPT). Arrows between some
nodes in successive layers demonstrate causality flow of the
influences. The conditional probability can be defined by
using Bayesian theorem presented in [12]. The Bayesian
theorem states the conditional probability of x given y in the
following equation:
( ) ( | )
( | )=
( )
where x and y are events while P(x)and P(y) are the
probabilities of x and y occurrences, P(x|y) and P(y|x) are the
The inputs to the BBN layer are MEG’s condition
measurements, which is extracted from the deterministic data
of the MEG. Fig. 2 illustrates the BBN structure of a MEG.
The BBN consists of five parameters of condition
measurements that form the observation level and the
parameters are: demand not served (DNS), high-temperature
alarm, trip alarm, pollution level and fire alarm. The BBN
structure also consists of the output parameters which form
the causes level and include: over load, lack of DER,
intermittency of RES, integration of multi DERs, faults in the
transmission line, faults in distribution line, faults in
transformer and utility grid failure.
The main role of ANFIS layer is to process the BBN
output values to provide an accurate decision of which
parameter(s) is (are) causing the fault event.
A. Bayesian Belief Networks
BBN is an effective tool for modeling systems that have
incomplete information and/or uncertainty of input data. The
uncertainty may be caused due to different reasons. For
instance, the experts’ knowledge may have inherent
uncertainty factors on the situation being modeled. It may
also be the uncertainty of accurate and available information.
BBN offers a probabilistic inference network for
representing an intuitive graphical model of numerous causes
and consequences.
conditional probability of x given y and the conditional
probability of y given x respectively.
The prior information about the relationships among
nodes located in different layers are stored in the CPT, which
can be utilized for a diagnostic decision-making.
B. Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interference System
The modern expert systems are utilizing fuzzy logic
theory for reasoning the input data instead of Boolean logic
[13]. The fuzzy expert system converts a set of user-supplied
human language rules to their mathematical equivalents.
ANFIS is an integration of neural network (NN) and
(1)
fuzzy logic (FL) [14]. Fuzzy logic has the capability to
convert human knowledge and insights into a quantitative
process and rules. Nevertheless, there is no defined rule
governing the converting process of human knowledge to

rule-based fuzzy inference system (FIS), further to a long
process time to refine the shapes and ranges of the
membership functions (MFs). The NN has a greater
capability in the learning process. Thus, the NN was used to
refine the MFs automatically [15].
III. APPLICATION OF HYBRID BBN-ANFIS METHOD FOR
MEG SAFETY ASSESSMENT
In this research, a MEG structure that illustrated in ref. [1]
is selected as a case study. The MEG comprises 16 MW
co-generator, 2MW photovoltaic power (PV) and 2 MW
wind turbine (WT) for the electricity discipline. A set of six
identical electrical chillers of 2100 KWe size capacity and
6.0 performance are used to satisfy the cooling demand. A
500 MWh thermal energy storage (TES) tank is used to store
the surplus cooling and heating energy.
In accordance with the literature, numerous faults may
cause an energy blackout. The most common fault events and
their observation parameters were presented in ref. [5]. The
BBN structure in Fig. 2 is proposed to reasoning links
between fault observation and fault causes layers (diagnosis
symptoms) as shown in Table I.
Fig. 3 shows an ANFIS structure of the MEG safety
assessment decision-making stage. The ANFIS architecture
consists of five main layers, each layer consists of a number
of nodes distributed as follows: 8-112-14-141. The first and
fourth layers consist of adaptive nodes while fixed nodes are
used among the other layers.

Figure 3. The structure of adaptive neuro-fuzzy interference system.

The eight input nodes that form the first layer of ANFIS
are the diagnosis symptoms of a MEG illustrated in Table I Gaussian(x, c, σ) = e (2)
and each node in this layer has three Gaussian membership
functions where c is the center of the membership function and σ its
width.
TABLE I. CONDITIONAL PROBABILITY OF FAULT DIAGNOSIS OF ONE AND TWO COMBINED FAULTS OBSERVATION OF A MEG

Diagnosis result
Intermitt Integratio Fault in Fault in Fault in Utility
# Fault Observation Nodes Over Lack of
ency of n of multi Transmis distributi transform grid
Load DER
RES DERs sion line on line er failure
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
15 Demand not served (DNS) 0.2267 0.2309 0.1464 0.1595 0.1122 0.2006 0.2605 0.1027

16 High Temp. Alarm 0.2369 0.2 0.173 0.2922 0.4638 0.1378 0.2 0.1

17 Trip Alarm 0.2113 0.2 0.1559 0.1945 0.2549 0.2288 0.3116 0.1

18 Pollution Alarm 0.1956 0.2 0.1317 0.1317 0.1804 0.216 0.2851 0.1

19 Fire 0.2163 0.2 0.1493 0.1 0.1991 0.3044 0.3826 0.2183

Demand not served (DNS)-High Temp.
15-16 0.2556 0.2152 0.1712 0.4504 0.3103 0.1518 0.1953 0.0952
Alarm
15-17 Demand not served (DNS)-Trip Alarm 0.2116 0.1725 0.0832 0.2444 0.1361 0.2593 0.342 0.0951


 Demand not served (DNS)-Pollution
15-18 0.1982 0.1948 0.1112 0.1726 0.1111 0.2597 0.3398 0.098
Alarm
15-19 Demand not served (DNS)-Fire 0.209 0.187 0.1059 0.1116 0.1132 0.3336 0.4166 0.1781

16-17 High Temp. Alarm-Trip Alarm 0.209 0.2 0.1689 0.3596 0.5037 0.1125 0.1825 0.1

16-18 High Temp. Alarm-Pollution Alarm 0.2123 0.2 0.1877 0.3288 0.444 0.0938 0.1579 0.1

16-19 High Temp. Alarm-Fire 0.2883 0.2 0.1923 0.2528 0.5295 0.2498 0.3188 0.2005

17-18 Trip Alarm-Pollution Alarm 0.1929 0.2 0.13 0.1773 0.2455 0.2505 0.3406 0.1

17-19 Trip Alarm-Fire 0.2087 0.2 0.1459 0.0905 0.1214 0.3526 0.4543 0.1602

18-19 Pollution Alarm-Fire 0.1961 0.2 0.1334 0.0621 0.1029 0.3592 0.4499 0.1675

Unlikely, the output layer consists of one node that The scheme of fuzzy reasoning mechanism for ANFIS is
provides a decision of which input node(s) is (are) causing illustrated in Fig. 4. Fourteen if-then rules are governing the
the hazardous event. process where the columns represent the eight inputs and one
output data.

Figure 4. Fuzzy reasoning ANFIS scheme of MEG.

Fifteen cases with complete symptoms, see Table I, were
utilized to evaluate the hybrid BBN-ANFIS performance for
fault diagnosis of a MEG. The first case in the table is
presented in Fig. 4. The summation of symptom nodes states
is assumed to be a unity and they are medium, medium,
medium, medium, medium, medium, medium and medium,
respectively. Based on this evidence, the posterior
probability of each fault can be computed to obtain the most
candidate fault among all is “Fault in transformer”, with a
probability of 98.31%.
IV. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
Failure in MEGs has negative influences on the public
interest and safety. As well as, it has critical consequences on
the financial liabilities. In this paper, a study of safety
assessment of MEGs under uncertainty conditions and
incomplete system’s information was proposed. A hybrid
technique, using BBN and ANFIS based technologies,
contributes an efficient tool for MEGs fault diagnosis. Where
the results demonstrate that the hybrid BBN-ANFIS can
perform fault diagnosis with complete or incomplete
symptoms. The main strength of the proposed approach is
due to its dependency on experts’ knowledge than the data
from measurement instrumentation (I&C) in its
decision-making process. The results show a robust
performance of the hybrid technique proposed of fault
diagnosis of a MEG that would potentially provide a solution
to the reasoning problem of complex systems. This may be an
interest of the authors for future works.
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