Stabilized frequency response of a microgrid using a two-degree-of-freedom controller with African vultures optimization algorithm.

Nowadays, there is extensive penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) in microgrids such as solar power stations (SPS) and wind power stations (WPS). The RESs are power electronic converter-dominated systems that have zero inertia making the microgrid to have very low inertia. Low inertia microgrid has a high rate of change of frequency (RoCoF), and the frequency response is highly volatile. To cope with this issue virtual inertia and damping are emulated into the microgrid. Virtual inertia and damping, i.e., converter with short-term energy storage device (ESD), which delivers and absorbs electrical power depending on the frequency response of microgrid and minimizes the power variation between power generation and power consumption. In this paper virtual inertia and damping are emulated based on a novel two-degree of freedom PID (2DOFPID) controller optimized with African vultures optimization algorithm (AVOA) technique. The meta-heuristic technique, AVOA, tunes the gains of the 2DOFPID controller and also the inertia and damping gain of the virtual inertia and damping control (VIADC) loop. AVOA comes out to be superior to other optimization techniques when compared in terms of convergence rate and quality. The performance of the proposed controller is compared to other conventional control methodology that has demonstrated its better performance. The dynamic response of such a proposed methodology in a microgrid model is verified in an OPAL-RT real-time environmental simulator, i.e., OP4510.