Load frequency control of power system under deregulated environment using optimal firefly algorithm

In this paper, a novel Firefly Algorithm (FA) optimized hybrid fuzzy PID controller with derivative Filter (PIDF) is proposed for Load Frequency Control (LFC) of multi area multi source system under deregulated environment by considering the physical constraints such as Generation Rate Constraint (GRC) and Governor Dead Band (GDB) nonlinearity. As the effectiveness of FA depends on algorithm control parameters such as randomization, attractiveness, absorption coefficient and number of fireflies are systematically investigated, the control parameters of FA are tuned by carrying out multiple runs of algorithm for each control parameter variation then the best FA control parameters are suggested. Additionally, the superiority of the FA is demonstrated by comparing the results with tuned Genetic Algorithm (GA). To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, time domain simulations are carried out considering different contracted scenarios and the comparative results are presented. Further, sensitivity analysis is performed by varying the system parameters and operating load conditions. It is observed from the simulation results that the designed controllers are robust and the optimum gains of proposed controller need not be reset even if the system is subjected to wide variation in loading condition and system parameters. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is evaluated under random step load disturbance. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.