Frequency Control for Stand-Alone Hydro Power Plants using Ant Colony Optimization

Future generation will mostly depend on renewable energy resources due to lack of conventional energy resources, hence existing renewable energy resources are being modified for efficiency improvement and enhancement of power generation. Water is a huge source of renewable energy used in hydro power plants. Modelling of hydro power plant is shown in this paper and also a complete simulation model is designed. The purpose of this paper is to control the output frequency of hydro power plant. Variation in flow of water disturbs the speed of hydraulic turbine which results in variable voltage and frequency at the generator output. Therefore in order to obtain the constant frequency at the hydro power plant a PID controller is being used in governor. In this research, the controller parameters are obtained using two techniques ZeiglerNichols (Z-N) technique and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). ACO is used to overcome the problems in traditional Z-N technique. The frequency output of the hydro power plant using both techniques are compared which proves that ACO is better than Z-N technique. This paper work can be used for practical purposes and theoretical analysis.