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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2763607, IEEE
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Load Frequency Control in Microgrids Based on a
Stochastic Non-Integer Controller
Mohammad-Hassan Khooban, Member, IEEE, Taher Niknam, Member, IEEE, Mokhtar Shasadeghi,
Tomislav Dragicevic, Senior Member, IEEE, and Frede Blaabjerg, Fellow, IEEE
 is quite significant as it can decrease power loss in
Abstract—In this paper, an adaptive multi-objective
Fractional-Order Fuzzy proportional–integral–derivative
(MOFOFPID) controller is proposed for the load frequency
control (LFC) of islande d Microgrids (MGs), while benefiting
from the assets of electric vehicles (EVs) in this respect. Although
the use of battery energy storage systems (BESS) can solve the
unbalance effects between the load and supply of an isolated MG,
their high cost and tendency toward degradation are restrictive
factors, which call for the use of alternative power balancing
options. In recent years, the concept of utilizing the BESSs of
EVs, also known as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concept, for frequency
support of MGs has attracted a lot of attention. In order to allow
the V2G controller operate optimally under a wide range of
operation conditions caused by the intermittent behavior of
renewable energy resources (RESs), a new multi-objective
fractional-order control strategy for the EVs in V2G scenarios is
proposed in this paper. Moreover, since the performance of the
controller depends on its parameters, optimization of these
parameters can play a significant role in promoting the output
performance of the LFC control; hence, a modified black hole
optimization algorithm (MBHA) is utilized for the adaptive
tuning of the non-integer fuzzy PID controller coefficients. The
performance of the proposed LFC is evaluated by using real
world wind and solar radiation data. Finally, the extensive
studies and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations are
presented to prove that the proposed controller tracks frequency
with lower deviation and fluctuation and is more robust in
comparison with the prior-art controllers used in all the case
studies.
Index Terms— Load Frequency Control (LFC), Modified
Black Hole Algorithm (MBHA), MicroGrid (MG), Fractional
Controller, Electric-Vehicle (EV).
I. INTRODUCTION
I n recent years, due to the decline of conventional fossil fuel
resources and the environmental pollutions they caused,
modern electrical power systems face increased deployment of
renewable energy sources (RESs) like photovoltaic (PV) and
wind turbine generator (WTG) systems [1-3]. In this context,
the local harness of RES through distributed generators (DGs)
M.H. Khooban, T. Niknam and Mokhtar ShaSadeghi are with the
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Shiraz University of
Technology, Shiraz, Iran (e-mail: khooban@sutech.ac.ir, and
niknam@sutech.ac.ir).
T. Dragicevic and F. Blaabjerg are with the Electrical Engineering
Department, University of Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark, (e-mail:
fbj@et.aau.dk).
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1
transmission lines and increase the overall reliability of the
electrical power systems [4]. The concept of the microgrid
(MG) has been proposed to locally co-optimize the operation
of a number of DGs and to further enhance the controllability,
reliability, flexibility and power quality of the overall
electrical systems, while postponing the construction of new
power stations at the same time [5].
From the utility point of view, MG is an independent unit
which can be operated in both grid-connected and isolated
modes [6]. In the grid connected mode, the main target is
usually to perform auxiliary services to the overhead system
and optimize the internal energy management at the same time
[7]. On the other hand, the isolated operation of MG can be
used for supplying remote applications (telecom, rural
households, etc.) or for enhancing the power quality of weak
grids by manually disconnecting it from the overhead system.
In the latter mode, due to the low inertia of the MGs compared
with the grid, it is a challenge to maintain the active and
reactive power balances between the supply and consumption,
especially in the presence of intermittent RES and frequent
load variations [8, 9]. The most common solution to this
problem in isolated MGs was the installation of backup
systems such as micro turbines and energy storage systems
(ESSs).
Besides RES, electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid
electric vehicle (PHEV) technologies are other key
technologies that will lead to a carbon-neutral society [10].
Since EVs are environmentally friendly and can significantly
reduce the use of gasoline, it is predicted that they will
dominate the future of automotive industry. In the PHEV
technology, the bidirectional flow of power between the grid
and the vehicle’s battery can be achieved, so that its remaining
capacity can be used for ancillary services such as peak
shaving or frequency support. However, the charging and
discharging of PHEV batteries can increase the complexity of
the overall frequency control of the system [11, 12].
When considering the autonomous MG, both RES and EVs
need to be coordinated together to limit the frequency
fluctuation by compensating for the mismatch between
generation and demand. This functionality is often referred to
as load frequency control (LFC). The proper LFC can not
only guarantee the frequency stability of the MG but also
increase its efficiency (fuel saving). In order to improve the
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response of LFC, many controllers including conventional
PID control [13], intelligent control [14], adaptive control
[12], robust control [15] and MPC control [11] have been
applied to the DGs of islanded MGs. In [16], an MPC-based
coordinated control of the blade pitch angles of the WTG and
PHEV has been proposed for the LFC. The MPC controller is
applied in order to smooth wind power production and
decrease the number of required PHEVs. In [17], a new
method is suggested for the LFC in MGs by using an
intelligent PI controller for improving the robustness of the
whole of system. Moreover, the integral square error (ISE) is
used for optimum tuning of PI’s parameters to increase the
performance of the proposed controller [17].
Since the operation conditions of the LFC can widely change,
the PI controller which is tuned for nominal conditions cannot
work properly in other conditions. So, in order to solve this
problem, the fuzzy logic (FL) which adjusts the control
parameters according to the operating point is proposed in
[11]. One drawback of the system is that its good performance
is achieved in only some specific member functions. In [18],
the application of robust H-infinity control in the LFC of an
isolated MG is studied. The control method, which has been
suggested in [18], is very complicated and hence not attractive
for real world applications. As a result, the small signal
analysis of an isolated MG in the presence of energy storage
unit has been proposed in [19]. Besides, in order to increase
the robustness of the isolated MG, the hierarchical control is
presented in [20].
In order to overcome the aforementioned difficulties, this
paper introduces a new adaptive approach by using a novel
optimization technique for the adaptive tuning of the most
common fractional-order fuzzy PID (FOFPID) controller for
the EV that supports the LFC in islanded MG(s). FOFPID
parameters are tuned automatically according to the online
measurements, by applying MBHA. Unlike the classical
tuning methods which are not suitable for providing a useful
performance over a wide range of operation conditions, many
advantages are offered by the proposed optimal tuning scheme
for the frequency control of an MG with many DGs and RESs.
Moreover, the proposed method is significantly less complex
in comparison to the above-mentioned approaches, making it
more convenient for practical applications. The simulation
study is performed on a complex MG, including different
loads and RESs to demonstrate the effectiveness of the
proposed control scheme; the superiority of the suggested
controller over Multi-Objective Proportional–Integral–
Derivative (MOPID), Multi-Objective Fuzzy Proportional–
Integral (MOFPI) and Multi-Objective Interval Type-2 Fuzzy
Logic (MOIT2FLC) controllers is demonstrated in Section VI.
To further corroborate the performance and robustness of the
proposed control system, experimental validation using the
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulation is also given in this
paper.
II. MODELING OF AN ISOLATED MICROGRID
A. The model of an isolated microgrid
Fig. 1 depicts an isolated MG in which DGs such as PVs and
WTGs, and energy storage units such as BESS and FESS
supply the distributed loads [22].
The power grid and the MG operation are controlled by the
distribution management system (DMS) and the MG dispatch
system (MGDS), respectively. Also, the bidirectional
information transfer can be achieved through communication
links [11].
Fig. 1.General scheme of Micro-Grids.
B. Electric Vehicle Model
Generally, there are different numbers of EVs in each EV
station. As a result, using an equivalent EV with a different
inverter capacity can handle the modeling of the EVs'
behavior. The equivalent EV model, proposed in [11, 23] for
the LFC study, is shown in Fig. 2. In this figure, Te and
represent the time constant and the LFC command signal to
the EV, respectively. The interfacing inverter capacity limits
are shown by and which represent the ramp rate
limits. The lower and upper limits of the EV’s controllable
energy are represented by and , correspondingly.
The charging or discharging power of the EV is represented
by . The positive sign of indicates that the EV is in the
discharging mode while the negative sign shows that EV is in
the charging mode. expresses the idle operation mode
of the EV.
Fig. 2.The electric vehicle model in Microgrid LFC.
C. The Diesel power system model
Due to the advantages of the diesel power system, including
its fast starting speed, low maintenance and high efficiency, it
has been a good backup option in isolated microgrids. The
controllable DG can instantaneously track load demand
changes through the power control mechanisms it employs
[17]. The fluctuation of uncontrollable DGs such as WTG, PV
and loads can be effectively compensated for by the diesel
power system.

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However, power loss is inevitable in them due to the boundary

and external contact with the series resistance. Moreover, the
generated power of the PV is intermittent and depends on sun
irradiance and temperature; hence, in simulations a random
power source can be used to model the behavior of PV [13,
22]. The PV model which is considered as disturbance for the
LFC is depicted in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3.Diesel Power System Model

F. General scheme of microgrid with LFC controller

Fig. 3 shows the transfer function of the diesel power system
which represents the relationship between the LFC signal and The framework of the proposed LFC and an isolated MG
the output power of DG. As shown in Fig. 3, the model which consists of EVs, DGs such as PV, WT and diesel
generator, energy storage units like BESS and FESS and loads
consists of first order inertia models of the governor and diesel
is depicted in Fig. 5. As shown in this figure, the PV, Fuel Cell
generator and two saturation blocks.
(FC), BESS and FESS units are connected to the AC MG via
In this figure, and represent frequency deviation and DC/AC interfacing inverters. The FC is modeled by a third
the LFC command signal from the DG, respectively. and order transfer function [22, 24]. All small scale DGs and
denote the time constant of the governor and the diesel energy storage units are connected to the AC bus via a circuit
generator, correspondingly. shows the condition of the breaker. The spinning reserve for the secondary frequency
governor’s valve. The speed regulation coefficient of the DG control is provided by the diesel power system.
is shown by R in this Fig. and represent the power
increment and ramp rate limits, respectively. The output
power increment of the diesel power system is represented
by . means that demand and generation are in a
balance condition and there is not any need for changing the
power. means that the required power is higher than
the actual power while the represents the condition
that the actual power is less than the demand [23].

Fig. 5.Case Study model for the LFC in MG system.

The parameters of the MG system which is depicted in Fig. 4

are listed in Table.1.

Table 1: MG power system’s parameters

S ymbol and Values S ymbol and Abbreviation Values
Abbreviation
2.000 s 0.5 s
1.000 s 1.8 s
3.000 2s
0.010 1/300
0.025 1
0.950 1
0.800 1/500
D 0.012 0.6

2H 0.200 -1/100

0.100 s -1/300
Fig.4. The overall microgrid scheme including EV for LFC
0.100 s 1/100
D. Model of Wind Turbine 4.000 s ‘s’ means second
Because of the intermittent behavior of wind, the output power
of wind turbines changes according to the different speed and
directions wind takes [13, 22]. By controlling the DG units III. THE STRUCTURE OF FRACTIONAL ORDER FUZZY PID
CONTROLLER
and EVs, the uncontrolled WTG can be modeled as a
disturbance and a power fluctuation source in LFC. The A. Fractional-order calculus (FOC) in Control Systems
dynamic model of WTG is shown in Fig. 4.
Fractional calculus is one of the most important branches of
E. Photovoltaic (PV) Generation calculus in which the power of the differential and integration
PV cells which are made from semiconductor materials can operators can take a non–integer value. During the last few
directly convert the energy of photons to electrical energy. decades, the FOC has been applied in many fields of

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automatic control systems [25]. Fractional Calculus-Based
Control Systems can be illustrated by where
is the order of operation while t , are the upper and
lower limits, respectively [26]. There exist a large number of
definitions, such as Grünwald–Letnikov (GL), Cauchy integral
formula and Riemann–Liouville (RL), which are applied to
define the FOC. However, in automatic control systems, the
Cauchy integral formula is frequently applied for the purpose
of realizing the fractional-order differentiations and
integrations of the FO-Fuzzy-PID (FOFPID) controller [27].
∫ ,
B. Design of fractional order proportional integral-
derivative (FOPID) controller
The main advantage of the FOFPID controller which has been
used in this study is that it encompasses the benefits of the
combination of fuzzy logic with PID controller which is
comprehensively discussed in [25]. In the proposed method,
and are considered as the fuzzy logic input and, and
as fuzzy logic outputs. The advantages of this kind of
FOFPID structure over the Model Predictive Control (MPC)
and the conventional PID are presented in [28]. In the original
FPID controller, the power of the input error derivative is
integer. In this study, in contrast, this power is fractional-order
( ). Moreover, the order of the integral in the output is
changed by the fractional order counterpart ( ). The general
scheme of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 6.The general scheme of Fractional-order PID (FOPID)
controller.
By considering the general scheme of Fig. 6, the control law
can be written as:
The other conventional controllers such as the integer PID and
integer Fuzzy PID can be obtained by considering the values
of and as one. Table 2 displays the set of optimal FOFPID
rules. The fuzzy linguistic variables which are similar to the
input and output variables are classified as (NS), (NM), (NL),
(ZR), (PS), (PM), and (PL), referring correspondingly to
Negative Small, Negative Medium, Negative Large, Zero,
Positive Small, Positive Medium and Positive Large. The
categorization is based on triangular MF(s).
Table 2: The MOFOFPID controller Rules Set
NL NM NS PS PM
̇ The optimum usage of the data obtained by the members of
S NL NM NS PS PS
M NL NL NM PS PM
L NL NL NL PM PM
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Moreover, the former parts of each rule will be made by using
AND function (with hermeneutics of minimum). Besides, the
Mamdani fuzzy inference engine is also applied in this study
[29]. In fuzzy control systems, changing the scaling factors of
the fuzzy output has a more positive influence on the
performance of the FOFPID controller than does making
alterations in the form of the MF(s). As a result, the tuning of
all coefficients in the FOFPID cannot be equally effective in
affecting the total performance of the control system. The goal
of this study is to explore the result of tuning fractional-orders
( and since keeping the rules set and the form of MFs
unaltered can noticeably increase the total closed loop
(1) performance of the FOFPID controller. Consequently, this
method can be more effective in reducing the volume of
calculations, and as a result, the output of the FOFPID
controller can be extremely influenced by tuning fractional-
orders instead of tuning the MF(s) variables or other fuzzy
inferencing parameters. So, the next section presents a new
modified multi-objective optimization algorithm to turn the
parameters of proposed controller.
IV. OVERVIEW OF THE ORIGINAL BLACK HOLE ALGORITHM
(BHA)
The idea of BHA was taken from the intelligent collective
behavior of the stars around a black hole. The movement
characteristic of the stars can be expressed as in [30] and [31]:
(3)
where and represent the position of the target
and the updated agent in iteration iter, respectively. A
comprehensive introduction with details of this algorithm is
provided in [31].
A. IBH Mechanism [31]:
A novel method is suggested for the collapsing process so that
the exploration of the properties of the BHA will be enhanced.
Primarily, the updating mechanism of the BHA will be
enhanced through (4):
(4)
where r can be regarded as a random number within the range
(2) of [1, NPop] and . In the second step, the modification
of the event horizon of the BH ( ) based on the distribution
and collection of the stars should be done using (5) and (6).
‖ ‖ (5)
∑ (6)
Moreover, the new concept of Absorption Capacity (AC) is
proposed for the BH. The elimination of the hyper dispersion
of the solution and the control of the number of the stars
located in event horizon is achieved in this method. In BHA,
PL
after a star collapses in the BH, a new star is born randomly.
PM the population is achieved by the new formulation expressed
PM in (7).
PM
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minimized in the Interactive Fuzzy Satisfying Method can be

(7)
proposed in terms of the following equation:
where
V. MULTI-OBJECTIVE INTERACTIVE FUZZY SATISFYING (IFS) ∫ (11)
METHOD
∫ (12)
The value and the number of control signals are among the
In this equation, the first objective function is used for
most important factors to consider in designing and
providing the fast tracking of the desired set-point while the
implementing hardware. In other words, in an application with
accuracy of tracking the set point is achieved by the second
large values of control signals, a big size actuator is required,
objective function. A schematic representation of the online
which correspondingly increases the total cost of the system.
tuning of the FOFPID controller based on the MOMBHA
Consequently, effective control of a system requires a smooth
technique is depicted in Fig. 7.
control that can track the set point fast. Using the multi-
objective optimization principle can overcome complexity in
optimal control problem. Weighting the cost function of the
optimum problem with some indexes such as the Squared
Deviation of Controller Output (ISDCO), Integral of Absolute
Error (IAE), Integral of Time multiplied Squared Error (ITSE)
and the Integral of Time Multiplied Absolute Error (ITAE)
can prevent the high control signal. It should be mentioned
that the aforementioned objectives (IAE, ISDCO, ITSE and
ITAE) can act in contrast with each other. Consequently,
formulating the control system as a multi-objective stochastic
optimization problem can reduce the value of the control
effort.
Using the MG system can inherently emulate some of the
Fig.7.The general scheme of the suggested controller for LFC
uncertainties of the system pertaining, for instance to its
output variations, and storage batteries; hence, using integer
VI. SIMULATION RESULTS
and non-integer controllers can be a good choice for a system
in which the operation point is widely subject to change. To In this section, in a trial run to examine the proposed control
solve the optimization problem, in this paper a new online method, the MG which is depicted in Fig. 4 is simulated in
multi-objective optimization method for the optimum tuning MATLAB/Simulink software. The parameters of the isolated
of the common FOFPID controller is proposed. In this microgrid are listed in Table 1. The performance of the
method, using online measurement, the Multi-objective proposed controller is compared with that of the MOPID,
MBHA (MOMBHA) is applied for the optimum tuning of the MOFPI and MOIT2FLC controllers. Since the respond of the
FOFPID controller. The MOMBHA problem can be system depends on the parameters of these controllers, all of
formulated by (8). the parameters are optimized by the MOMBHA optimization
algorithm in different controllers. In order to evaluate the
performance of the proposed control method in the context of
(8) the MG depicted in Fig. 4, the Hardware-In-the Loop (HIL)
simulation approach is utilized. The real time HIL method is
In this paper, an IFS approach is used to resolve the used to emulate errors and delays that do not exist in the
aforementioned multi-objective problem [32]. In this method, classical off-line simulations. Fig. 8 sketches the HIL setup,
the sufficient degree of each objective can be defined by the consisting of: 1) OPAL-RT as a Real Time Simulator (RTS)
operator. Generally speaking, the non-inferior solution set in which simulates the MG depicted in Fig. 4; 2) a PC as the
the most optimal solution would be chosen in such a way that command station (programming host) in which the
the preferences of the operators are satisfied: Matlab/Simulink based code that is executed on the OPAL-RT
{ | |} (9) is generated; and 3) a router used as a connector of all the
setup devices in the same sub-network. The OPAL-RT is also
Here, μref is the satisfying degree of the related target,
connected to the DK60 board through Ethernet ports. More
determined by the operator in the range of [0, 1]. , on the details about the components of this setup can be found in [33,
other hand, denotes the MF value of the wth objective and is 34].
designed by the trapezoidal fuzzy membership as represented
below:

{ (10)

It should be noted that a heuristic algorithm like the MBHA

merely requires information about the fitness function. As a
consequence, in order for the online tuning of the FOFPID
controller, the objective functions vector that should be Fig.8.The Real time experimental setup.

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A. Case 1: simulation. As illustrated in Fig. 12, the performance of the

In the first step, it is assumed that the load demand in the LFC in eliminating the load disturbance can be improved
isolated MG is constant i.e., . In other words, the when using the proposed controller; moreover, as shown in
power fluctuation of WTG ( ) and PVG ( ) is this figure, the settling time of the frequency response is
consistent in the LFC system. The wind power fluctuation data decreased significantly.
extracted from an offshore wind farm in Sweden [35] is
depicted in Fig.9.a, while Fig.9.b shows the solar radiation
data in Aberdeen (United Kingdom) [36], which was also used
in this case study. Fig.10 depicts the frequency response of the
simulated system.
Fig. 11. Step changes of the load in the interval of 90 seconds .

Fig. 12.Frequency response according to the power fluctuation of WPG,

Fig. 9.Power fluctuation, a- WPG, b- PV. PV and load disturbances.

C. Case 3
To evaluate the robustness of the proposed controller, some
parameters of the isolated MG are changed in the third case
study. The changing of the parameters is made in a scenario
which is displayed in Table 3.
Table 3. Uncertain parameters of the MG system
Parameters Variation Range
R +15%
D -25%
H +30%
Fig. 10. Frequency response according to the power fluctuation of WPG and -25%
PV +30%
As shown in Fig. 10, employing MOFOFPID reduces the peak -20%
value of frequency deviation and this reduction is achieved in +30%
the least amount of time as compared to the time when the As shown in this table, a more severe changing of the
MOPID, MOFPI and MOIT2FLC controllers are used. As a parameters is applied to evaluate the robustness of the
result, MOFOFPID can considerably enhance the life of both proposed control method. Fig. 13 depicts the response of the
the batteries and the equipment used in the DG by providing a LFC in the scenario by using the proposed as well as the
faster stabilization in the output frequency of the MG while MOPID, MOFPI and MOIT2FLC controllers.
requiring less frequency adjustment. .
Moreover, the simulation results in this case suggest that using
the MOFOFPID results in the LFC tracking the reference
frequency with fewer overshoots and much smaller settling
time in comparison to the other three controllers.

B. Case 2
In this section, multi-step load variation is applied to the LFC
as a disturbance. The load steps are depicted in Fig.11, while
Fig. 13.The frequency deviation of the micro-grid according to Scenario 3.
the frequency deviation responds of MOPID, MOFPID,
MOIT2FLC and MOFOFPID controls are depicted in Fig.12.
As revealed in Fig. 13, the proposed controller enhances the
As displayed in Fig. 12, the frequency deviation overshoot is
performance of the LFC more effectively than the other three
decreased and the LFC control can eliminate the effect of load
control methods, especially when the overshoots are
disturbance more effectively when the proposed method,
concerned. In other words, the results suggest that the
rather than the others, is employed. The performances of these
proposed controller is more robust against the changes in
controllers are further examined by creating a severe
parameters as compared to the other controllers. It is also
condition, applying a large load step at t=60s of the

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revealed that the MOPID, MOFPI and MOIT2FLC controllers
do not have a satisfactory performance in this scenario where
there are severe parameter changes.
D. Case 4
Finally, the last scenario examines the efficiency of the
proposed controller in a situation where there are limitations in
using EV(s) in the MG. To this end, the EV is disconnected
from the grid at t=47s. At the same time, the same load
disturbance and wind/PV power fluctuations considered in
Cases A and B are applied to the system. The simulation
results are presented in Figure 14. In addition, three common
error measurement criteria are used to evaluate the efficacy of
the MOPI, MOFPI, MOIT2FLC and the suggested control
scheme in this scenario. These included Sum of the Squared
Errors (SSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and Mean Square
Error (MSE). These approaches can lead to an optimal
performance if the values of SSE, MAE, and MSE are close to
zero. Table 4 presents the evaluation results obtained for these
controllers.
Fig. 14.The frequency deviation of the micro-grid according to Scenario 4.
The frequency deviations presented in figure 14 demonstrate
that the MOFOFPID controller can better improve the
performance of the MG in comparison to the other three
control structures especially as the overshoots are concerned.
Indeed, as it can be seen, despite the EV battery restriction that
occurs in the MG in this scenario, the performance of the
suggested controller is superior to that of the other three that
appear in figure 14. Further noticeable in this figure are the
results pertaining to the robustness of the proposed controller
against both parameter changes and the restriction that was
imposed on the system by disconnecting the EV. As it can be
noticed, none of the MOPID, MOFPI and MOIT2FLC
controllers has such an agreeable performance so far as their
frequency response against the severe changes of parameters
(Scenario 3) and their control of the MG system are
concerned. It is worth mentioning here that unlike the previous
research in this area, the current investigation was carried out
longitudinally to further contribute to the reliability of the
results concerning the satisfactory functioning of the proposed
controller.
Table 4.The performance analysis of controllers
Criteria M OPID M OFPI M OIT2FLC
SSE 10.8713 8.9211 1.8758
M AE 0.0799 0.0327 0.0055
M SE 7.6311e-4 2.3527e-4 5.9094e-5
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Transactions on Sustainable Energy
7
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a new adaptive and time-varying controller was
presented for the load frequency control of an isolated
microgrid. A stochastic multi-objective optimization algorithm
was used to optimize the parameter of the controller to track
the reference frequency in the presence of PV, wind
generation, V2G electrical vehicles and load disturbance. To
enhance the robustness of the controller against the stated
uncertainties of the microgrid, it was designed in two levels,
namely a Fractional-Order Fuzzy and a conventional PI
controller. Since the performance of the fuzzy systems
depends on their membership functions, the membership
function parameters were optimized by using
modification/improvement of MOBHA optimization
algorithm. This novel approach enhances the performance of
the LFC with low computation burden and complexity. In this
study, both load disturbance and the output power of DG units
were considered as ΔP in the model of microgrid; hence, the
proposed control approach was found to be adaptive enough to
give an appropriate performance in face of uncertain loads,
renewable energy sources and MGs of any typology. In order
to validate the performance and robustness of the controller,
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) simulation was used in this
study. Furthermore, the performance of the controller was
compared with MOPID, MOFPI and MOIT2FLC controllers
which have been suggested in the most recent research studies
on LFC.
VIII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Appreciation is offered to the Iran National Science
Foundation for a grant to collect data for this research. The
authors wish to thank the Iran National Science Foundation for
supporting helps to do this research and providing this
opportunity for the survey team. Moreover, the authors would
like to thank the reviewers for their very useful comments,
which helped us to improve the quality of the paper. The
reviewers’ efforts are gratefully appreciated.
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Mohammad-Hassan Khooban (M’13) was born in
Shiraz, Iran, in 1988. He received the Ph.D. degree
from Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran, in
2017. He was a research assistant with the University of
Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark from 2016 to 2017
conducting research on microgrids and Marine Systems.
His research interests include control theory and
application, power electronics and its applications in
power systems, industrial electronics, and renewable
energy systems.
Taher Niknam (M’14) received the B.Sc. degree from
Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran, in 1998, and the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees from Sharif University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2000 and 2005,
respectively, all in power electrical engineering. He is a
Faculty Member of the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Shiraz University of Technology. His
research interests include power sys- tem restructuring,
impacts of distributed generations on power systems,
optimization methods, and evolutionary algorithms.
Mokhtar Shasadeghi received the B.Sc. degree in
electronics engineering from Shiraz University,
Shiraz, Iran, in 1996, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees from Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran,
Iran, in 2001 and 2007, respectively. He is currently
an Associate Professor at Shiraz University of
Technology, Shiraz. His research interests include
robust control, fuzzy control, time-delay systems,
linear matrix inequalities, and sum- of-squares
decomposition and optimization.
Tomislav Dragicevic (S’09-M’13-SM’17) received
the M.E.E. and the industrial Ph.D. degree from the
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Zagreb, Croatia, in
2009 and 2013, respectively. From 2013 until 2016 he
has been a Postdoctoral research associate at Aalborg
University, Denmark. From March 2016 he is an
Associate Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.
His field of interest is overall system design of
autonomous and grid-connected DC and AC
microgrids, and industrial application of advanced modeling, control and
protection concepts to shipboard power systems, remote telecom stations,
domestic and commercial facilities and electric vehicle charging stations.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSTE.2017.2763607, IEEE
Transactions on Sustainable Energy
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY 9

Frede Blaabjerg (S’86-M’88-SM’97-F’03) was with

ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark, from 1987 to 1988.
From 1988 to 1992, he was a Ph.D. Student with
Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. He became an
Assistant Professor in 1992, an Associate Professor in
1996, and a Full Professor of power electronics and
drives in 1998. His current research interests include
power electronics and its applications such as in wind
turbines, PV systems, reliability, harmonics and adjustable speed drives. He
has received 17 IEEE Prize Paper Awards, the IEEE PELS Distinguished
Service Award in 2009, the EPE-PEMC Council Award in 2010, the IEEE
William E. Newell Power Electronics Award 2014 and the VillumKann
Rasmussen Research Award 2014. He was an Editor-inChief of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS from 2006 to 2012. He has
been Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Power Electronics Society from
2005 to 2007 and for the IEEE Industry Applications Society from 2010 to
2011. He is nominated in 2014 and 2015 by Thomson Reuters to be between
the most 250 cited researchers in Engineering in the world.

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