Optimal power generation in microgrid system using firefly algorithm

This paper proposes Firefly Algorithm (FA) for minimizing generation cost of a microgrid system. The microgrid system consists of renewable and conventional generating units have been considered as a case study in order to validate the performance of the proposed FA. This microgrid test system consists of seven generating units including two diesel generators, two wind turbines and three fuel-cell plants. The proposed FA is implemented to determine the optimal power output of each generator for 24 hours at minimum cost by using MAT LAB software. Moreover, the power generated by each generating unit must be satisfied the power balance and generator constraints. The performance of proposed FA have been investigated in terms of effect of population size, optimal solution, convergence characteristic and robustness. The results obtained by the proposed FA is also compared with several results of optimization methods. It found that FA outperformed other methods for cost minimization in considered microgrid test system.