Optimally tuned cascaded FOPI-FOPIDN with improved PSO for load frequency control in interconnected power systems with RES

In the operation and control of power systems, load frequency control (LFC) plays a critical role in ensuring the stability and reliability of interconnected power systems. Modern power systems with significant penetration of highly variable and intermittent renewable sources present new challenges that make traditional control strategies ineffective. To address these new challenges, this paper proposes a novel LFC strategy that employs a cascaded fractional-order proportional integral-fractional-order proportional integral derivative with a derivative filter (FOPI-FOPIDN) as a controller. The parameters of the FOPI-FOPIDN are optimised using a variant of the particle swarm optimization (PSO) in the literature called ADIWACO. The effectiveness and scalability of the proposed strategy are validated by extensive simulations conducted on two- and three-area test systems and performance comparisons with recent LFC control strategies in the literature. The performance metrics used for the evaluation are ITAE values, deviations in the power flows in the tie-lines, and deviations in the frequencies of the control areas with the power systems subjected to diverse load and RES generation disturbances in several experimental scenarios. Governor dead band, communication time delay, and generation rate constraints are considered in one of the scenarios for more realistic evaluation. Again, the controller’s robustness to uncertain model parameters is validated by varying the parameters of the three-area test system by ± 50%. The simulation results obtained confirm the controller’s robustness and its superiority over the comparison LFC strategies in terms of the above performance metrics.