UPGRADING POWER SYSTEM IN EGYPT TOWARDS SMART GRID

The world is turning towards smart grids. However, upgrading the existing systems could be the easiest solution for such approach. On the other hand, Load Frequency Control (LFC) is a critical issue in the dynamical operation of power systems. This paper presents LFC scheme for a realistic Power System operational in Egypt(EPS) with inherent nonlinearities. Moreover, the speed response of every subsystem is different from each other. The effects of the physical constraints such as Generation Rate Constraints (GRC) of power plants and speed governor dead band (blackash) are taken into consideration. In this paper, each subsystem controller has been designed independently to guarantee the stability of the overall closed loop system. Hence, optimal PID controllers based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm are proposed for every subsystem separately to regulate the frequency and track the load. In order to investigate the ability of upgrading the system to smart grids, the performance of the proposed decentralized PID controller of each subsystems is compared with aggregate one. The proposed model can achieve a robust stability against changing the system parameters and operating load condition for the EPS with multi-source environment. The results by nonlinear simulation Matlab/Simulink for the EPS LFC approves that the decentralized model of the controller gives the same performance as the aggregated one. However, in case of large disturbances, the aggregated controller design cannot handle the fault while the decentralized scheme is more robust and effective against all disturbances and operating conditions. In contrast, in the advanced smart grids, the aggregated design would give a better flexible control strategy for the system.