A Novel Optimal Control Method for Islanded Microgrids Based on Droop Control Using the ICA-GA Algorithm

Microgrids are small scale power systems with local resources for generation; consumption and storage, that can operate connected to the main grid or islanded. For the islanding operation of microgrids, two important tasks are to share the load demand and maintain the voltage and frequency stabilities. In order to achieve this goal, a hierarchical control structure can be employed. This research presents a solution technique for finding the optimal site, production and droop coefficients of distributed generation (DG) units in microgrids. In this paper, three main factors are scrutinized through a multi-objective optimization approach. These factors include fuel consumption cost, stability and variations of voltage. To solve this optimization problem, an Imperialist Competitive Algorithm-Genetic Algorithm (ICA-GA) is presented. A fuzzy approach is used to search in non-dominated outcomes and to find the best answer. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, it is implemented on 33-buses IEEE test systems. The simulation results exhibit the ability and efficiency of the proposed scheme to find the optimal solutions.