A New Fractional-Order Load Frequency Control for Multi-Renewable Energy Interconnected Plants Using Skill Optimization Algorithm

Connection between electric power networks is essential to cover any deficit in the generation of power from any of them. The exchange powers of the plants during load disturbance should not be violated beyond their specified values. This can be achieved by installing load frequency control (LFC); therefore, this paper proposes a new metaheuristic-based approach using a skill optimization algorithm (SOA) to design a fractional-order proportional integral derivative (FOPID)-LFC approach with multi-interconnected systems. The target is minimizing the integral time absolute error (ITAE) of frequency and exchange power violations. Two power systems are investigated. The first one has two connected plants of photovoltaic (PV) and thermal units. The second system contains four plants, namely, PV, wind turbine, and two thermal plants, with governor dead-band (GDB) and generation rate constraints (GRC). Different load disturbances are analyzed in both considered systems. Extensive comparisons to the use of chef-based optimization algorithm (CBOA), jumping spider optimization algorithm (JSOA), Bonobo optimization (BO), Tasmanian devil optimization (TDO), and Atomic orbital search (AOS) are conducted. Moreover, statistical tests of Friedman ANOVA table, Wilcoxon rank test, Friedman rank test, and Kruskal Wallis test are implemented. Regarding the two interconnected areas, the proposed SOA achieved the minimum fitness value of 1.8779 pu during 10% disturbance on thermal plant. In addition, it outperformed all other approaches in the case of 1% disturbance on the first area as it achieved ITAE of 0.0327 pu. The obtained results proved the competence and reliability of the proposed SOA in designing an efficient FOPID-LFC in multi-interconnected power systems with multiple sources.