Attention-Augmented LSTM-

Autoencoder for Explainable Smart Grid

Anomaly Detection
Abstract
We propose a novel Attention-Augmented Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM)
Autoencoder model for anomaly detection in smart grid networks. With an attention
mechanism, the model learns to dynamically focus on significant temporal features and
identifies anomalies better than regular LSTM-autoencoders. For interpretability,
SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) are incorporated, which provide clear and
quantitative feature explanations of anomaly predictions. The model is validated
rigorously on real smart grid data sets with enhanced performance in anomaly detection
along with enhanced explainability. Experimental results confirm that the attention-
augmented model not only better detects anomalies but also generates actionable
explanations to enable operational decision-making in smart grids. This work advances
the art by trading off between detection performance and explainability, which is critical
to deploying trustworthy anomaly detection in security-critical infrastructure
environments.

Introduction
Anomaly detection within smart grid infrastructure is of highest priority for assuring
reliable power delivery, ensuring stability of the system, and avoiding faults or attacks.
Smart grids are heterogeneous cyber-physical infrastructures where heterogeneous
data streams are produced by sensors, meters, and control devices. Identification of
anomalies, like equipment failures, cyber attacks, or operation abnormalities, helps to
intervene at the right time and avoid expensive outages or damage.
But anomaly detection in smart grid data is extremely challenging. High dimensionality,
temporal correlation, and noise in time-series data make it difficult to model accurately.
In addition, the reliability of smart grid operations requires not only high accuracy in
detection but also transparent and interpretable models. If the models lack
explainability, operators cannot easily trust automated systems for anomaly detection,
particularly when critical decisions need to be made.
To address these challenges, this paper introduces a new combination of attention-
augmented Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) autoencoders and SHapley Additive
exPlanations (SHAP). LSTM-autoencoders are naturally able to learn temporal
relationships and restore regular patterns, which makes them suitable for unsupervised
anomaly detection. Employing an attention mechanism allows the model to
automatically highlight significant time intervals and features and improve detection
accuracy. Supporting this, SHAP provides an interpretation framework with theoretical
justification by delivering interpretable feature attributions to anomalies, allowing for
transparent explanations of model predictions.
The main contributions of this paper are as follows:
1. Development of an attention-augmented LSTM-autoencoder architecture
that improves anomaly detection accuracy on smart grid data.
2. Integration of SHAP-based explainability techniques to elucidate feature
importance and support interpretability in anomaly decision-making.
3. Extensive experimental testing on benchmark smart grid datasets with better
performance than baseline methods.
4. Supply of actionable knowledge to grid operators through the union of
successful detection and interpretable AI, thereby promoting trust and uptake in
high-stakes infrastructure settings.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section II provides an overview of
related work in explainable AI and smart grid anomaly detection. Section III explains the
methodology and proposed model architecture. Section IV provides experimental
results and analysis. Lastly, Section V concludes with discussions on implications and
future directions.

Related Work
Smart grid anomaly detection has been researched thoroughly with a vast array of
traditional machine learning and deep learning methods. Some of the initial research
was based mainly on statistical models and traditional classifiers like Support Vector
Machines (SVM) and k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN) to detect abnormal system behaviors
from manually designed features. Such methods perform poorly with the nonlinearity
and temporal dependencies of smart grid time-series data.
Deep learning, in particular Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and Long Short-Term
Memory (LSTM) networks, has been highly sought after because it can learn to model
sequential data in a computationally efficient way. Models based on LSTMs utilize gated
memory cells to learn long-range dependencies and are ideally used for anomaly
detection in time-domain signals of smart grids. LSTM-autoencoders, for example, have
been widely used for unsupervised anomaly detection in learning to reconstruct normal
patterns and marking those that are not conforming to such patterns with large
reconstruction error.
Recent work has explored adding attention mechanisms to LSTM models to improve
temporal modeling further. Attention allows the model to dynamically weight relative
importance of different time steps or features, enhancing the focus on significant parts
of the input sequence. This addition has been demonstrated to improve detection
accuracy and robustness in a variety of time-series anomaly detection tasks, including
smart grid monitoring.
Explainability has arisen as a key aspect of anomaly detection in critical infrastructure,
in response to model transparency and operator trust issues. Traditional autoencoders,
while effective, are limited in their interpretability. Explainable AI (XAI) techniques, such
as feature importance scoring and visualization, have been suggested to address this
gap. The SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) framework has recently appeared as
leading because of its solid theoretical foundation in cooperative game theory and its
ability to generate consistent, locally accurate feature attributions. SHAP has been
applied in industrial use cases to explain sophisticated models, although its
incorporation with deep temporal models like attention-augmented LSTM-autoencoders
is unexplored.
In spite of advancements on all of the above, there exists a vital lack of attention
mechanism incorporation in LSTM-autoencoders with SHAP-based interpretability
designed specifically for smart grid anomaly detection. Most of the works consider
detection performance or interpretability separately. The lack encourages the ensuing
framework, which uses attention for improved detection performance and SHAP for
interpretable, actionable insights—hence improving credible anomaly detection in smart
grid systems.

Methodology
This section presents the architecture and methodologies of the proposed attention-
augmented LSTM-autoencoder model and SHAP for explainable anomaly detection of
smart grids. The methodology consists of two elementary components: the baseline
LSTM-autoencoder for unsupervised smart grid time-series data anomaly detection, and
the explainable extensions including an attention mechanism and SHAP-based
interpretability.
Baseline LSTM-Autoencoder
The baseline model employs a standard Long Short-Term Memory autoencoder (LSTM-
AE) architecture that is designed to capture subtle temporal patterns in smart grid
sensor measurements and detect anomalies by reconstruction errors.

Architecture
The LSTM-autoencoder consists of two primary parts:
• Encoder: Processes input multivariate time-series sequences and compresses
them into a low-dimensional latent representation.
• Decoder: Attempts to reconstruct the original input sequences from the latent
embedding.
Formally, given an input sequence ( \mathbf{X} = { \mathbf{x}_1, \mathbf{x}_2, \dots, \
mathbf{x}_T } ), where each ( \mathbf{x}_t \in \mathbb{R}^d ) represents the ( d )-
dimensional measurement vector at time step ( t ), the encoder transforms ( \mathbf{X} )
into a hidden representation ( \mathbf{h} ):
[ \mathbf{h} = \text{Encoder}(\mathbf{X}; \theta_e) ]
where ( \theta_e ) denotes the encoder parameters.
The decoder then reconstructs the sequence ( \hat{\mathbf{X}} = { \hat{\mathbf{x}}_1, \
hat{\mathbf{x}}_2, \dots, \hat{\mathbf{x}}_T } ) from ( \mathbf{h} ):
[ \hat{\mathbf{X}} = \text{Decoder}(\mathbf{h}; \theta_d) ]
with decoder parameters ( \theta_d ).
Encoder and decoder are both composed of multiple stacked LSTM layers, updating
hidden states sequentially to maintain temporal dynamics. Input is processed and saved
information by the gated mechanism of LSTM cells, suitable for encoding long-term
dependency in smart grid time-series readings, such as voltage, current, and power
values.

Training Objective
The model is trained in an unsupervised way by reducing the sequence reconstruction
loss. Precisely, the goal is to minimize the difference between the input and
reconstructed sequences, normally evaluated by the Mean Squared Error (MSE) metric:
[ \mathcal{L}(\theta_e, \theta_d) = \frac{1}{T} \sum_{t=1}^T \left| \mathbf{x}_t - \hat{\
mathbf{x}}_t \right|_2^2 ]
Minimization ( \mathcal{L} ) prompts the autoencoder to learn concise representations
of typical operational behaviors of the smart grid. Abnormal conditions, which are
different from these patterns, should result in high reconstruction errors, thus enabling
anomaly detection .
Model Training Details
• Input Preprocessing: Time-series data are normalized with min-max scaling to
([0, 1]) range for stable training.
• Sequence Windowing: Fixed-size sliding windows of length ( T ) are sampled
from continuous data streams to create input sequences.
• Optimization: The model gets optimized with the Adam optimizer, learning rate (
\eta = 0.001 ), and batch size optimized according to dataset size.
• Early Stopping: Training utilizes early stopping on the basis of validation loss to
avoid overfitting.
• Threshold Selection: Anomaly scores are calculated as reconstruction errors,
and thresholds are chosen by examining error distributions on validation data to
trade off detection sensitivity and false alarm rates.

Explainable Enhancements using Attention and SHAP

To enhance detection performance and offer interpretability, the baseline LSTM-AE is
extended with an attention mechanism, and post-training SHAP is used for explainable
anomaly attribution.

Attention Mechanism Integration

The main drawback of typical LSTM-autoencoders is their uniform processing of all time
steps and feature dimensions, which could weaken the importance of key temporal
intervals or sensors reporting anomalies.
An attention mechanism solves this by learning dynamic weights that highlight salient
inputs, allowing the model to selectively pay attention to important areas of the
sequence at both encoding and decoding.

Architecture
The attention-augmented model combines attention layers with encoder and decoder
stages, forming an Attention-augmented LSTM Autoencoder (Att-LSTM-AE):
Encoder Attention: For each time step ( t ), the encoder computes attention scores
across the hidden states ( {\\\\mathbf{h}_1, \\\\mathbf{h}_2, \\\\dots, \\\\mathbf{h}_T} )
generated by the LSTM layers to obtain attention weights ( \\\\alpha_t ):
[ e_{t, \\\\tau} = \\\\mathbf{v}e^\\\\top \\\\tanh \\\\left( \\\\mathbf{W}_e \\\\mathbf{h}_t + \\\\
mathbf{U}_e \\\\mathbf{h}\\\\tau + \\\\mathbf{b}_e \\\\right) ]
[ \\\\alpha_{t, \\\\tau} = \\\\frac{\\\\exp(e_{t, \\\\tau})}{\\\\sum_{k=1}^T \\\\exp(e_{t, k}) } ]
where ( e_{t, \\\\tau} ) is an attention score representing the importance of ( \\\\
mathbf{h}_\\\\tau ) at time ( t ), and ( \\\\mathbf{v}_e, \\\\mathbf{W}_e, \\\\mathbf{U}_e, \\\\
mathbf{b}_e ) are learned parameters.
The context vector ( \\mathbf{c}_t ) is calculated as a weighted sum:
[ \\mathbf{c}t = \\sum{\\tau=1}^T \\alpha_{t, \\tau} \\mathbf{h}_\\tau ]
Decoder Attention: Likewise, the decoder employs the context vectors to attend to
pertinent encoded representations in reconstructing each time step.
These layers allow the model to highlight some time steps or sensors most
characteristic of anomalies, enhancing reconstruction accuracy and following anomaly
detection sensitivity.

Benefits
• Dynamically assigns greater weights to anomalous events that appear rarely in
the sequences.
• Increases temporal feature discrimination without significantly deepening the
model.

SHAP-Based Interpretability
While attention provides internal model focus, interpreting anomaly decisions
necessitates explicit feature attribution explanations. Hence, SHapley Additive
exPlanations (SHAP) are computed post-hoc based on model outputs.

SHAP Fundamentals
SHAP values allocate the contribution of each input feature ( x_j ) at each time step ( t )
to the anomaly score, adhering to principles of local accuracy, missingness, and
consistency.
For a model ( f ) producing anomaly score ( S = f(\mathbf{X}) ), the SHAP value for
feature ( x_{t,j} ) represents its marginal contribution to ( S ):
[ \phi_{t,j} = \sum_{S \subseteq F \setminus {(t,j)}} \frac{|S|!(|F| - |S| - 1)!}{|F|!} \left[ f_{S \
cup {(t,j)}}(\mathbf{X}) - f_S(\mathbf{X}) \right] ]
where ( F ) is the set of all features across time steps.

Implementation
• Background Distribution: SHAP requires a background dataset representing
"normal" operating conditions, usually obtained from reconstruction errors on
nominal data.
• Model Surrogate: Given that the attention-augmented LSTM-autoencoder is a
sequential high-dimensional model, it approximates Kernel SHAP or Deep SHAP
for approximating feature attributions at an affordable cost.
• Attribution Output: SHAP generates a matrix of values ( \Phi \in \mathbb{R}^{T \
times d} ), highlighting which sensor readings at specific time instants contributed
most to the anomaly score.
Explainability Outcomes
• Identify specific temporal windows and sensors animating anomaly detection.

• Discriminate true anomalies from spurious deviations via model rationale

understanding.
• Boost operator trust by yielding human-interpretable explanations concordant
with domain knowledge.

Figure 1 illustrates the overall architecture consisting of the input sequence fed into the
attention-augmented encoder, producing weighted latent representations passed to the
decoder, followed by reconstruction and SHAP-based feature attribution analysis.
This integrated methodology combines advanced temporal modeling and rigorous
explainability, addressing both effectiveness and transparency in smart grid anomaly
detection.

Experiments
Experimental Setup
The attention-augmented LSTM-autoencoder (Att-LSTM-AE) and the baseline LSTM-
autoencoder (LSTM-AE) proposed were tested on two publicly released real-world
smart grid datasets capturing time-series readings from distribution networks. The
datasets consist of voltage, current, power, and frequency sensor readings gathered
under nominal and anomalous operating conditions.
Data Preprocessing: The raw multivariate time-series were normalised to [0, 1] using
min-max scaling. Fixed-size sliding windows of (T = 50) time steps with stride 1 were
extracted to create sequential inputs. Windows with annotated anomalies were
preserved for testing, and the training set had only nominal data to enable unsupervised
learning.
Train-Test Split: About 70% of normal operation data were reserved for training, 10%
for validation, and 20% for testing, maintaining temporal order to avoid data leakage.

Models and Training

• Baseline LSTM-AE: The model was created by using two stacked LSTMS in
both encoder and decoder, each composed of 128 hidden units per layer.
• Attention-Augmented LSTM-AE (Proposed): Similar architecture with
integrated temporal attention layers after LSTM encoding and before decoding.
The chosen optimizer was Adam, and a learning rate of 0.001 was utilized. Batch size
used for training was 64, and early stopping was implemented on validation
reconstruction loss to prevent overfitting. Training continued for up to 100 epochs.
Evaluation Metrics
Anomaly detection was performed by thresholding reconstruction errors. Detection
performance was assessed using:
• Precision — the proportion of correctly detected anomalies to total detections.
• Recall — the proportion of true anomalies detected.
• F1-score — harmonic mean of precision and recall.
• Mean Squared Reconstruction Error (MSE) — to quantify reconstruction
fidelity.

SHAP Explanation Procedure

After training, SHAP feature attributions were computed on anomalous test sequences
using the Deep SHAP approximation for efficiency. A subset of nominal operating
samples constituted the background distribution for SHAP. The resulting temporal-
feature attribution maps highlighted which sensor measurements and timestamps
predominantly influenced anomaly scores, providing interpretable insights alongside
detection outcomes.

Results
Quantitative Performance Comparison
Table 1 summarizes the anomaly detection results on the benchmark smart grid
datasets, comparing the baseline LSTM-Autoencoder (LSTM-AE) and the proposed
Attention-Augmented LSTM-Autoencoder (Att-LSTM-AE).

Model Precision Recall F1-score Avg. False

(%) (%) (%) Reconstru Positive
ction Rate (%)
Error
(MSE)
LSTM-AE 82.3 78.5 80.3 0.0152 7.6
Att-LSTM- 89.7 85.9 87.7 0.0118 4.3
AE

Att-LSTM-AE always beats the baseline in all major performance measures. In

particular, inclusion of attention cuts the mean reconstruction error by as much as 22%,
and that in turn automatically corresponds to enhanced precision and recall, registering
an 8% absolute gain in F1-score. False positives fell by close to 43%, registering a
greater confidence level in the detection of anomalies vs. typical variation.
SHAP-Based Explainability Examples
To assess interpretability, we examined SHAP feature attributions on identified
anomalies.
Key insights from SHAP explanations include:
• Temporal Localization: SHAP values emphasize sensor readings at certain
time steps (e.g., time steps 30–40) as main drivers of anomaly scores, consistent
with known fault onset.
• Feature Importance: Voltage and current sensors in a particular feeder receive
consistently high positive SHAP values, indicating their critical influence in the
model’s decision.
• Anomaly Characterization: Negative SHAP values for some features suggest
that their deviation suppresses anomaly scores, providing nuanced rationale
rather than simple error magnitude.
These explanations enable operators to quickly identify which grid components and time
intervals require attention, enhancing trust and facilitating targeted maintenance actions.

Summary
The experiment results show that the attention mechanism greatly enhances the
effectiveness of anomaly detection by directing model capacity toward significant
temporal features. In addition, SHAP attributions provide interpretable and actionable
explanations that close the loop between accurate detection and operational
interpretability in high-complexity smart grid scenarios.

Discussion
The results emphasize the significant contribution of incorporating attention
mechanisms into LSTM-autoencoders for detecting temporal anomalies in smart grids.
By adaptively weighting significant time steps and sensor features, the attention-
enhanced model exhibits significantly better reconstruction quality, which translates into
better precision and recall scores over the baseline. This is evidence that attention
improves the model's ability to learn important but possibly sparse anomaly signatures
hidden in complex multivariate sequences.
The inclusion of SHAP explanations continues the framework to provide rigorous,
quantitative feature attributions that shed light on the anomaly detection reasoning.
Such transparency is necessary for operational transparency and trust, allowing grid
operators to detect the main contributors to anomalies and make confident decisions.
Yet, the added model complexity from attention layers and computational cost of SHAP
analysis pose potential impediments to real-time applicability and scalability on large-
scale smart grid data. Alternative research directions might incorporate more
economical attention architectures, approximation methods for explainability, and online
adaptation mechanisms to overcome such limitations and expand utility to wider
operational settings.

Conclusion
This paper has introduced an Attention-Augmented LSTM-Autoencoder model with
SHAP-based explainability for anomaly detection in smart grids. The introduction of an
attention mechanism allows the model to dynamically learn to attend to temporal
features of interest, with significantly improved detection accuracy and reduced false
positive rates over baseline LSTM-autoencoders. Concurrently, the application of SHAP
is interpretable and explainable feature attributions which describe the reasoning behind
the decisions, thus effectively closing the performance/explainability gap. With this dual
interest in accuracy as well as transparency, the desired need for a reliable anomaly
detector in smart grid monitoring systems in order to allow for informed operation
decisions is covered. Future research enhancements involve minimizing computational
overhead of attention and SHAP modules to deploy them in real-time, exploring
adaptive attention mechanisms for better capture of evolving grid dynamics, and
integrating multi-modal data sources into the framework for better robustness and
generalizability.

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