Slime Mould Algorithm Based Fractional Order Cascaded Controller for Frequency Control of 2-Area AC Microgrid

Abstract

This study proposes a Slime Mould Algorithm (SMA) based Fractional Order (FO) cascaded controller (FOPI-FOPD) for frequency control of a two-area AC microgrid (MG) system. The multi-area MG system comprising of a diesel engine generator (DEG), wind turbine generator (WTG), photovoltaic cell (PV), microturbine (MT), along with electric vehicles (EV) and energy storage system like ultra-capacitor (UC). SMA is a novel bio-based optimization tool, which can be used to solve an eclectic real-world problem. This paper aims to incorporate the SMA optimization strategy to solve the Load Frequency Control (LFC) in a microgrid arising due to the ambiguous nature of solar, wind and random load variation. The supremacy of SMA has been vindicated by its comparison over two other intelligent tuning approaches like Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Moreover, the effectiveness of SMA optimized FOPI-FOPD is validated through a comparative study with some classical controllers. Lastly, it is inferred from numerous simulated outcomes that recommended SMA based FOPI-FOPD controller is better concerning LFC of the MG system.