Synergistic Use of Nighttime Satellite Data, Electric Utility Infrastructure, and Ambient Population to Improve Power Outage Detections in Urban Areas

Tony Cole,Andrew Molthan,Miguel Román,Robert Griffin,David Wanik

doi:10.3390/rs9030286

Abstract

Natural and anthropogenic hazards are frequently responsible for disaster events, leading to damaged physical infrastructure, which can result in loss of electrical power for affected locations. Remotely-sensed, nighttime satellite imagery from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) can monitor power outages in disaster-affected areas through the identification of missing city lights. When combined with locally-relevant geospatial information, these observations can be used to estimate power outages, defined as geographic locations requiring manual intervention to restore power. In this study, we produced a power outage product based on Suomi-NPP VIIRS DNB observations to estimate power outages following Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This product, combined with known power outage data and ambient population estimates, was then used to predict power outages in a layered, feedforward neural network model. We believe this is the first attempt to synergistically combine such data sources to quantitatively estimate power outages. The VIIRS DNB power outage product was able to identify initial loss of light following Hurricane Sandy, as well as the gradual restoration of electrical power. The neural network model predicted power outages with reasonable spatial accuracy, achieving Pearson coefficients (r) between 0.48 and 0.58 across all folds. Our results show promise for producing a continental United States (CONUS)- or global-scale power outage monitoring network using satellite imagery and locally-relevant geospatial data.

Highlights

A disaster event occurs when a natural or anthropogenic hazard impacts human populations [1].Natural hazards such as severe thunderstorms, winter storms, tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes, and landslides are frequently responsible for disaster events which can result in long-term and widespread loss of electrical power for affected locations
This study demonstrated the ability to use nighttime environmental products from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor to identify power outages caused by disaster events
Suomi-NPP VIIRS sensor to identify power outages caused by disaster events

Summary

Introduction

A disaster event occurs when a natural or anthropogenic hazard impacts human populations [1]. Natural hazards such as severe thunderstorms, winter storms, tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes, and landslides are frequently responsible for disaster events which can result in long-term and widespread loss of electrical power for affected locations. Either from direct impact to a power generation or distribution system, or indirectly from other objects like fallen trees and branches, may linger for several days or weeks following a disaster event. Previous studies have demonstrated qualitative and quantitative techniques for estimating power outages from DMSP-OLS data. Aubrecht et al tracked the gradual recovery of power following Hurricane Wilma in 2005 by repeatedly generating RGB composites using the same methodology as Elvidge et al [16]

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