Flower pollination algorithm tuned cascade PI-PD controller for automatic generation control in a non-linear hybrid renewable energy-based power system with communication latency

The ever-increasing power demands have led to the need to integrate conventional and renewable power sources to meet the requirements. The key concern during such integration is the frequency fluctuations during varying loads. This paper proposes an optimized cascade proportional integral and proportional derivative (PI-PD) algorithm based on the flower pollination algorithm (FPA) for automatic generation control of a six-source two-area hybrid power system. The various power generation sources include thermal, hydro, wind, gas, diesel, and solar power generators. PI controllers provide improved system dynamic response, low cost, and design simplicity, however, it might result in slower response times and to combat this, a PD controller is cascaded with the PI controller. The gains for the cascade PI-PD controller are tuned by the FPA. This technique follows the principle of keeping the fittest product alive. The superiority of the dynamic behavior of the suggested technique is inspected by comparing it with the various controllers that are optimized using different algorithms. In addition, the robustness of the suggested controller is also examined by subjecting the system to disturbances like communication time delay (CTD), generation rate constraint (GRC) and governor dead band (GDB). It is observed that the cascaded PI-PD controller based on FPA achieves control over the frequency in the optimum settling time as well as remains stable and consistent over external disturbances.