Search Results (5)

The rapid increase in the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in recent years is leading to a significant impact on the electric grid. To ensure sufficient power to these EVs, multiple electric vehicle charging stations (EVCSs) need to be deployed strategically in the electrical power network. Randomly adding these EVCSs can cause potential power quality problems and necessitate additional infrastructure like new distribution/transmission lines, transformers and sub-stations. This can be overcome by optimal deployment of EVCSs. Many existing optimization techniques suffer from premature convergence, sensitivity to initial parameters, the curse of dimensionality and not performing well on non-linear problems. This leads to suboptimal results. To address these drawbacks, a novel method, based on the Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (AHA), has been developed to identify the optimal location of EVCSs. The novel method, the Modified Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (MAHA), has been applied to the standard power network–IEEE-57 bus system to find the optimal placement of EVCSs. When compared to existing methods of AHA, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), the results show that MAHA is more effective in determining the optimal placement of EVCSs. Full article

With the increasing application of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units, Combined Heat and Power Economic Dispatch (CHPED) has emerged as a significant issue in power system operations. To address the complex CHPED problem, this paper proposes an effective economic dispatch method based on the Improved Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (IAHA). Given the complex constraints of the CHPED problem and the presence of valve point effects and prohibited operating zones, it requires the algorithm to have high traversal capability in the solution space and be resistant to becoming trapped in local optima. IAHA has introduced two key improvements based on the characteristics of the CHPED problem and the shortcomings of the standard Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (AHA). Firstly, IAHA uses chaotic mapping to initialize the initial population, enhancing the algorithm’s traversal capability. Second, the guided foraging of the standard AHA has been modified to enhance the algorithm’s ability to escape from local optima. Simulation experiments were conducted on CHP systems at three different scales: 7 units, 24 units, and 48 units. Compared to other algorithms reported in the literature, the IAHA algorithm reduces the cost in the three testing systems by up to USD 18.04, 232.7894, and 870.7461. Compared to other swarm intelligence algorithms reported in the literature, the IAHA algorithm demonstrates significant advantages in terms of convergence accuracy and convergence speed. These results confirm that the IAHA algorithm is effective in solving the CHPED problem while overcoming the limitations of the standard AHA. Full article

The high penetration of distributed photovoltaics (PV) in distribution networks (DNs) results in voltage violations, imbalances, and flickers, leading to significant disruptions in DN stability. To address this issue, this paper proposes a multi-timescale voltage regulation approach that involves the coordinated control of a step voltage regulator (SVR), switched capacitor (SC), battery energy storage system (BESS), and electric vehicle (EV) across different timescales. During the day-ahead stage, the proposed method utilizes artificial hummingbird algorithm optimization-based least squares support vector machine (AHA-LSSVM) forecasting to predict the PV output, enabling the formulation of a day-ahead schedule for SVR and SC adjustments to maintain the voltage and voltage unbalance factor (VUF) within the limits. In the intra-day stage, a novel floating voltage threshold band (FVTB) control strategy is introduced to refine the day-ahead schedule, enhancing the voltage quality while reducing the erratic operation of SVR and SC under dead band control. For real-time operation, the African vulture optimization algorithm (AVOA) is employed to optimize the BESS output for precise voltage regulation. Additionally, a novel smoothing fluctuation threshold band (SFTB) control strategy and an initiate charging and discharging strategy (ICD) for the BESS are proposed to effectively smooth voltage fluctuations and expand the BESS capacity. To enhance user-side participation and optimize the BESS capacity curtailment, some BESSs are replaced by EVs for voltage regulation. Finally, a simulation conducted on a modified IEEE 33 system validates the efficacy of the proposed voltage regulation strategy. Full article

Recently, a swarm-based method called Artificial Hummingbird Algorithm (AHA) has been proposed for solving optimization problems. The AHA algorithm mimics the unique flight capabilities and intelligent foraging techniques of hummingbirds in their environment. In this paper, we propose a modified version of the AHA combined with genetic operators called mAHA. The experimental results show that the proposed mAHA improved the convergence speed and achieved better effective search results. Consequently, the proposed mAHA was used for the first time to find the global maximum power point (MPP). Low efficiency is a drawback of photovoltaic (PV) systems that explicitly use shading. Normally, the PV characteristic curve has an MPP when irradiance is uniform. Therefore, this MPP can be easily achieved with conventional tracking systems. With shadows, however, the conditions are completely different, and the PV characteristic has multiple MPPs (i.e., some local MPPs and a single global MPP). Traditional MPP tracking approaches cannot distinguish between local MPPs and global MPPs, and thus simply get stuck at the local MPP. Consequently, an optimized MPPT with a metaheuristic algorithm is required to determine the global MPP. Most MPPT techniques require more than one sensor, e.g., voltage, current, irradiance, and temperature sensors. This increases the cost of the control system. In the current research, a simple global MPPT method with only one sensor is proposed for PV systems considering the shadow conditions. Two shadow scenarios are considered to evaluate the superiority of the proposed mAHA. The obtained results show the superiority of the proposed single sensor based MPPT method for PV systems. Full article

Recent advancements in renewable generation resources and their vast implementation in power sectors have posed serious challenges regarding their operation, protection, and control. Maintaining operating frequency at its nominal value and reducing tie-line power deviations represent crucial factors for these advancements due to continuous reduction of power system inertia. In this paper, a new modified load frequency controller (LFC) method is proposed based on fractional calculus combinations. The tilt fractional-order integral-derivative with fractional-filter (TFOIDFF) is proposed in this paper for LFC applications. The proposed TFOIDFF controller combines the benefits of tilt, FOPID, and fractional filter regulators. Furthermore, a new application is introduced based on the recently presented artificial hummingbird optimizer algorithm (AHA) for simultaneous optimization of the proposed TFOIDFF parameters in the studied two-area power grids. The contribution of electric vehicle (EVs) is considered in the centralized control strategy using the proposed TFOIDFF controller. The performance of the proposed TFOIDFF controller has been compared with the existing tilt with filter, PID with filter, FOPID with filter and hybrid fractional-order with filter LFCs from the literature. Moreover, the AHA optimizer results are compared with the featured LFC optimization algorithms in the literature. The proposed TFOIDFF and AHA optimizer are validated against renewable energy fluctuations, load stepping, generation/loading uncertainty, and power-grid parameter uncertainty. The AHA optimizer is compared with the widely-used optimizers in the literature, including the PSO, ABC, BOA, and AEO optimizers at the IAE, ISE, ITAE, and ITSE objectives. For instance, the proposed AHA method has a minimized IAE after 34 iterations of 0.03178 compared to 0.03896 with PSO, 0.04548 with AEO, 0.04812 with BOA, and 0.05483 with ABC optimizer. Therefore, fast and better minimization of objective functions are achieved using the proposed AHA method. Full article