Challenges and Opportunities in AI Integration in Power System Protection

Power system protection is essential for maintaining the reliability and stability of electrical grids, ensuring continuous service, and preventing catastrophic failures. As power systems evolve to incorporate renewable energy and increasingly complex configurations, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enhancing protection mechanisms has become indispensable. This paper reviews the integration of AI in power system protection, highlighting its potential to improve fault detection, adaptive protection strategies, predictive maintenance, and real-time monitoring. AI techniques, including machine learning, deep learning, and expert systems, offer significant advancements in overcoming the limitations of traditional protection schemes. Furthermore, the integration of AI contributes to the development of resilient and sustainable infrastructure, supports innovation in intelligent urban systems, and enhances the reliability of modern power grids. Despite its promising potential, challenges such as data scarcity, model scalability, and real-time processing need to be addressed for effective implementation. This review synthesizes the current literature on AI applications in power system protection, comparing them with conventional methods, and provides information on future research directions and practical applications to improve energy reliability, sustainable urban development, and industrial innovation.