Performance investigation of ABC algorithm for automatic generation control of a three area interconnected power system

This paper presents the implementation of ABC optimization technique to determine the optimum set of PID parameters for the LFC. The investigation is carried out on a three area interconnected reheat thermal power system with GRC. The PID controller for all three areas is tuned simultaneously using the ABC algorithm and the system response is observed. The performance of the controller is investigated by analysing the system response under different operating conditions. In the initial condition, the load demand is applied under different time steps. Subsequently the performance of the system under GRC parameter variation and different performance criterions were investigated. Simulation results show that the ABC algorithm is robust and efficient in minimizing the maximum overshoot and settling time of the system. This further suggests that ABC algorithm can be chosen as a tuning algorithm for bigger and more complex AGC models.