ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the automatic generation control (AGC) of a three-area interconnected thermal power plant is investigated with a PID controller considered as secondary controller. The gain values of the PID controller are optimized using the ant colony optimization (ACO) method with integral time absolute error (ITAE) objective function. The controller’s gain values are optimized by using ACO method with and without considering the effect of the superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) unit in all interconnected power plants areas.
The performance of the system with an SMES energy storage unit is compared with the performance of a system without considering an energy storage unit. The simulation results show that an SMES unit effectively damps out the oscillations and reduces the settling time of the system response (frequency of system, tie-line power flow in between interconnected areas, and area control error) during sudden load disturbance. The numerical values and response comparisons are given in a table and plot. It is clearly proved that a system response with an SMES unit settled quicker compared to a system response without considering an SMES unit in all areas.
