Islanded microgrid congestion control by load prioritization and shedding using ABC algorithm

The continued growth in load demand and the gradual change of generation sources to smaller distributed plants utilizing renewable energy sources (RESs), which supply power intermittently, is likely to strain existing power systems and cause congestion. Congestion management still remains a challenging issue in open access transmission and distribution systems. Conventionally, this is achieved by load shedding and generator rescheduling. In this study, the control of the system congestion on an islanded micro grid (MG) supplied by RESs is analyzed using artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm. Different buses are assigned priority indices which forms the basis of the determination of which loads and what amount of load to shed at any particular time during islanding mode operation. This is to ensure as minimal load as possible is shed during a contingency that leads to loss of mains and ensure a congestion free microgrid operation. This is tested and verified on a modified IEEE 30-bus distribution systems on MATLAB platform. The results are compared with other algorithms to prove the applicability of this approach.