Constrained population extremal optimization-based robust load frequency control of multi-area interconnected power system

Abstract This paper proposes a robust proportional-integral (PI) controller with its parameters designed by constrained population extremal optimization for load frequency control problem of multi-area interconnected. During the process of optimization, the robust performance index is used as fitness function, where linear matrix inequalities technique is employed to describe the H ∞ constraint, and the taking error performance requirement such as integral time absolute error is incorporated as another constraint. Three different two-area interconnected power systems are used as test systems to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller by comparing with other PI control methods and one optimized model predictive control. In addition, in order to investigate the performance of proposed controller for the LFC problem of large scale system, a three-area interconnected power system is used as another test system. The comprehensive experimental results fully demonstrate that the proposed control scheme in this paper performs better than other control strategies on the most considered scenarios under the conditions of load disturbance and parameters uncertainties in terms of system response and control performance indices.