FLARE: Physics-Grounded Evaluation of Language-Model Agents for Feeder Restoration with Degraded Observations

Restoring service after distribution-grid faults requires decisions from incomplete and conflicting information while respecting electrical constraints. Addressing this need, we introduce FLARE (Feeder-Level Agent Restoration Evaluation), a physics-grounded benchmark for post-isolation feeder restoration. FLARE contains 800 AC-feasible cases across five observation settings and allows agents to gather evidence, evaluate switches, and perform restoration actions under fixed operational limits. We evaluate five instruction-tuned models over 78,750 episodes, including topology, distributed-generation, and loading shifts. Mean normalized regret ranges from 0.082 to 0.148. Although every model has zero median regret, P95 regret ranges from 0.814 to 1.000, revealing an important failure tail. Shadow replay shows that 96.4% of 15,706 guard-rejected actions would have caused a physical violation. FLARE enables reproducible evaluation of language-model-based restoration support while emphasizing the need for external safety checks. Code is available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/FLARE-neurips-1A71/