FIREFLY OPTIMIZED CONTROLLERS FOR FREQUENCY STABILIZATION IN AN INTERCONNECTED MICRO-GRID FED WITH SOLAR PV SYSTEMS AND ELECTRIC VEHICLES

ABSTRACT

Microgrids (MGs) rely heavily on renewable energy sources (RES), making frequency stability a top need.
The intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, along with their stochastic load characteristics, worsen
this issue. This manuscript tackles the concern of Frequency Control in a two-area MG system incorporating
an equal number of diverse energy sources such as solar PV systems, aqua-electrolyzers, wind turbines,
energy storage devices, Electric Vehicles, Bio-gas generators and fuel cells in both Area-1 and Area-2.To
address the issue of load frequency management (LFM), classical controllers including integral (I),
proportional-integral (PI), and proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers are employed and optimized
using the Firefly algorithm (FA). Simulation results reveal the PID controller's superior performance,
characterized by minimal settling periods and peak amplitude deviations. Moreover, the FA-PID controller
tuned with FA technique exhibits robust performance under varying demand conditions and demonstrates
insensitivity to significant deviations in load demands.