Design and analysis of firefly algorithm based PID controller for automatic load frequency control problem

In this paper, firefly algorithm based proportionalintegral-derivative (PID) controller has been attempted for the problem of Automatic Load Frequency Control (ALFC) in a two-area interconnected power system. Initially in a two area reheat power system, PID controllers are employed in each area as secondary controllers. PID controller optimal values are obtained by Firefly Algorithm (FA) where as the employed objective function is Integral Time multiplied Absolute Error (ITAE). In the next step, the supremacy of PID controller is shown by comparing with the controllers functioning as Integral (I) controller and Proportional-Integral (PI) controller and furthermore, the ability of PID controller also shown by interchanging step load disturbance to area two for different Step Load Perturbations (SLPs). It has been observed that from the simulation results the recommended FA based PID controller is better.