Optimized voltage and frequency control in off-grid
Power System
Harsha Anantwar
EEE, Dayananda Sagar College of
Engineering , Bangalore
hanantwar@yahoo.com
Abstract— This paper presents optimized control voltage
and frequency of off-grid power system (OPS) . The off-grid
power system considered in this is having small isolated load
supplied by power generation from of wind , PV and Diesel .
wind energy converting system (WECS) consist of fixed speed
squirrel cage Induction generator (SCIG) , Photovoltaic
system(PV) is connected through inverter. The other source in
the OPS is diesel-genset equipped with governor and
synchronous generator (SG) with automatic voltage regulator
(AVR). Any variation load power causes frequency and voltage
fluctuations. In this work ,to regulate voltage through reactive
power support , PV inverter is controlled and to regulate
frequency the diesel power is controlled, through governor
control. Hence , to coordinate control loops of voltage and
frequency, are optimized simultaneously.
The main contribution of this paper is to develop
coordinated optimized control for voltage and frequency of
OPS . Proportional integral (PI) controllers are used in the
control loops are tuned optimally using on bacterial forging
optimization algorithm(BFOA) . OPS is simulated for step
perturbation of load power (active and reactive) using
developed coordinated optimized control.
Keywords—optimized control , off-grid power system ,
bacterial forging optimization algorithm .
NOMENCLATURE
V, 𝛳 ,f : System voltage and voltage angle and
frequency.
, , : Reactive power of PV-inverter,
IG and SG
, , : Active power of PV- inverter, IG
and SG
, Total active and reactive power
p.u per unit
𝛥 small change
978-1-7281-0418-8/19/$31.00©2019 IEEE
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B.R Laksmikantha Shanmukha Sundar
Dayananda Sagar Academy of EEE, Dayananda Sagar College of
Technology and Managemnet Engineering , Bangalore
Bangalore hod_eee@dayanandasagar.edu
principaldsatm@gmail.com
I. INTRODUCTION
Remote villages and small islands where it is difficult to
have a electrical connection from the central utility, it is
essential to have energy solution to them which is cost
efficient and environment friendly. Mix of different
renewable energy sources is very hopeful solutions in such
locations. Presence of large quantity of wind and solar
energy observed in remote territories makes possible to
utilize them to fulfil their electrical energy requirement. [1-
2].The concern with renewable sources is that they are
variable, to realize reliable and quality power supply requires
suitable and efficient control techniques for maintain voltage
and frequency within prescribed range.
In the off -grid system load and SCIG used in WECS
needs reactive power support. Thus may causes severe
problem to regulate the voltage at nominal value , in the
event of insufficient reactive power supply . Likewise, the
low inertia of the small off-grid system may cause severe
frequency deviation in case of lack sufficient of real power.
The frequency control proposed in [3] to provide coordinated
frequency and voltage control for distributed generation
systems. variable power demand with operational constraint
is reported [4] for optimum design of hybrid system. This
work also demonstrate a scheme for power demand sharing
for optimally designed IG and SG of wind and diesel system.
The reactive power compensation by Static Voltage
Compensator (SVC) , Static synchronous compensator and
Inverter for voltage control for isolated hybrid system is
studied in [5-7.]
In the recent years, optimal tuning of controller
parameters using intelligent swarm based computing
techniques such as the Bacterial Foraging Algorithm (BFA)
has grabbed attention of researcher [9-10]
II. VOLTAGE AND FREQUENCY CONTROL OFF-GRID
POWER SYSTEM
The schematic of test system is shown in Fig1, where loads
assumed to be connected at common bus and are supplied
locally by the wind-PV- Diesel power generation sources
.In OPS , the frequency control is crucial due to low
inertia. Moreover, wind PV and sources cannot contribute
383
to the change in load demand due to their inherent The influence of frequency deviation is considered in the
dependency on environmental conditions. Likewise, the flux linkage and the reactive power output of SG, and they
voltage control is also vital due reactive power demand of are modified are given in Appendix II
SCIG and loads .The reactive power contributed by SG
cannot be enough to fulfil the changing reactive power
demand( load and SCIG) . under this condition , voltage
may deviate from its nominal value. To suppress larger
voltage fluctuations caused due shortage of reactive power ,
reactive power compensator is required in the system.
Over-rated PV inverter has ample amount of reactive power
generation capacity while sourcing PV real power can
compensate the unbalanced reactive power demand [ 7 ]. It
is acknowledged that small mismatch between real power
generation and demand results in frequency deviations
however small mismatch between reactive power
generation and demand results voltage deviations. The
excitation system on SG of diesel engine operates faster
compared to the governor-prime mover control , due to its
smaller time constant. Therefore , consequence of excitation
control loop of voltage control is usually ignored for the
load frequency control (LFC) [11].

Fig1. – Test system (OPS)

The benefits of consideration of impact of excitation loop
for the efficient control of frequency has been studied [12]
But, the study has been done for system having four large Fig2- Transfer function model of OPS
SG powering infinite bus via long transmission line. Hence
, present work considers the integration of frequency control
loop and voltage control loop.
Fig. 2 shows the transfer function-based model of OPS with
integrated control loops of frequency and voltage .
The transfer function representation of each components is
given [6-8] , The constants in Fig.2, are mentioned in
AppendixI .

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 III. OPTIMAL CONTROLLER PARAMETRS
TUNNING USING BFOA Tumble- Generates random vector ∆(I)∈ Ra , in
the ‘a ‘dimensional search space ( a = 4), for each
The aim of this study is to achieve coordinated optimum controller parameter be optimized ∆k (I), k= 1, 2,
frequency control and voltage control of OPS for , shown in 3,4 and a random number[-1,1]
Fig1.
compute the new position of Ith bacterium from
The two-gain parameter( and ) of voltage and present position
frequency controller formulates the four-dimensional
Optimization problem (I, , ,Ed) to new position with step length
The control output from PI controller ‘S in the direction of the tumble (I,
U= (1) +1, , )=
Where is voltage deviation and frequency (I, , , ) + S(I) )∆(I). (step-size ‘S’ is of fixed
deviation value )
Objective function for optimization of controller parameters Compute ISE (I, +1,R, ) for every bacterium for
is Integral of squared Error (ISE), The optimization task is
new position (I +1,R, ),
to minimize the OB which is function of both and to
obtain coordinate control of voltage and frequency, is Initialize swim loop =0
expressed as
While m<
Min(ISE) = Min { + }
If ISE (I, +1, R d) < ISE (bacterium heading
Subjected to : min
≤ ≤ max towards optimum point) then ISElast = ISE( I, +1, ,
min
≤ ≤ max . ) . calculate the position of bacterium as
(2) ( I, +1,R, ) = ( I, +1, , )+ S (I)∆(I).
BFOA is a social system based algorithm. It is a swarm Else, =
intelligence method of optimization. BFOA is based on
foraging technique of E.Coli bacteria. BFOA is proposed by If I ≠ to step 4a for the next bacterium (𝐼 = 𝐼
[13], for optimization. Foraging property of bacteria is +1)
modeled as optimization process. From the view of
optimization, in BFA, optimal value is the place, having If < , go to step 4
highest nutrient concentration [14]. Step 5. Reproduction:
The computation procedure for BFOA to solve the Health condition of the each bacterium after completing
optimization problem to find optimal solution is explained as
, chemotactic steps is calculated as .
Step 1. Initialize the BFOA parameters, (population of
ISE_health =
bacteria ( ), Number of chemotactic- steps
( ), Limit of a swim ( ), Number of
reproduction ( ), Number of elimination-
dispersal ( ),), the probability for bacteria to
be eliminated/dispersed ( ). sort value of ISE_health in ascending order (higher
ISE indicates unhealthy condition).
Unhealthy will die ,remaining healthy bacteria
Step 2. Initialize Elimination-dispersal loop =1 :
undergoes reproduction to the maintain population.
Step 6. If < then go to step2
Step 3. Initialize Reproduction loop =1 to ,

Step 7. Elimination-dispersal process

Step 4. Initialize Chemotactic loop =1 to
For I = 1 to ,
Step 4a. For 𝐼 = 1 to ,
bacteria having probability value lower than , get
Compute the objective function, ISE(I, , , eliminated and dispersed to a random position in the
) for every bacterium, newer region of search domain , while other bacteria
retain their position
save ISElast = ISE (I, , , ), to compare with
other best values( may obtain during a execution Step 8. If < , go to step 2, else end
of algorithm).

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 BFOA optimized PI
controller parameters
MATLAB program is written for BFOA . The parameter
of BFOA is given in Appendix II.
Inverter Voltage
21.5363 1813.14
The values of controller parameters are given in Table1 control loop
Load frequency
control loop -48 -1695.505
TABLE I. BFOA Optimized PI controller parametrs.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The transfer function model of OPS presented in Fig.2 is

used to study optimized coordinated frequency- voltage(f-v)
control. The diesel generation system is optimally controlled
to produces power to recompense the change in active
power demand and hence frequency. PV inverter output
voltage is
optimally controlled to supply deficit reactive power for
voltage control. Therefore, this work attempts to explore the
optimize voltage control from the fast-responding PV Fig3(C) Dynamic response of
inverter and excitation control of SG and optimize frequency
control from speed governor of diesel generation system.
The simulation results are presented in this section
demonstrates optimized coordinated control of voltage and
frequency under consideration of integrated voltage control
for frequency control loops.

The time domain responses of deviation in state variable

such as load voltage, frequency active and reactive power of
IG, SG and inverter for a 1% (0.01p.u) step increase in load
demand of both real and reactive at t= 0 Sec, at the Fig3 (d) Dynamic response of
constant wind power input to IG and 1% increase in PV
irradiance at t=0 sec, are illustrated in Fig3 (a) -to Fig (k).
The system is in steady state, prior to change in load demand.

Fig3(e)Dynamic response of

Fig3(a) Dynamic response of

Fig3 (f) Dynamic response of

Fig3(b) Dynamic response of

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 Fig3(g) Dynamic response of Fig3(k) Dynamic response of
From the Fig.3 (a) and Fig.3(b), it is observed that
inverter provides dynamic support of reactive power to
mitigate the load disturbance and from and Fig.3(c) and
Fig.3 (f ) it is seen that frequency control is controlled by
diesel generation system control. Maximum deviation of
voltage and frequency with designed optimized coordinated
controller is given in TableII.

TABLE II. MAXIMUM DEVIATION OF VOLTAGE AND FREQUENCY.

Fig3(h)Dynamic response of Maximum deviation (p.u)

For change
both in and - 0.0021 - 0.0013

V. CONCLUSION
The performance of the proposed BFOA optimized
coordinated control of voltage and frequency is validated
from simulation results of system state variables under step
Fig3(i) Dynamic response of deviation in load demand (active and reactive power) .
From the simulation results, it is observed that the optimized
coordinated control considering integration of two loops(f-v)
have proved an optimal dynamic performance of OPS .

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APPENDIX 1 = 𝛳
=
Test system data :

Wind Generation = 150KW;

Diesel Generation =150KW;
PV generation = 100 KW,
Load = 300KW , 𝛳
Base quantities - 400 KVA, Voltage = 400V, 𝛳
Frequency= 50 Hz,
APPENDIX II =

System state variable Equations ( steady state )

+ - - = Active power equation of Inverter
+ - - = =
System state variable Equations (transient condition)

+ - - - =
+ - - =

Reactive power equation of SG

Active power equation of SG

=
Reactive power equation of IG

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