Control Techniques for Enhancing the Performance of Automatic Voltage Regulator in Power System Stability

Abstract ―​

Voltage variations in electrical power system can result in voltage drop, spike or surge and thereby damaging electrical devices. The introduction of Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) as part of the power generating unit has brought relief in power system stability management. Implementing good and efficient controller as part of closed control system for AVR unit guarantees the running of generating sets at safe and stable conditions for normal operations and rapid response under different type of disturbances is very important in power system stability. This paper has carried out empirical survey of proposed and implemented control techniques for enhancing AVR system performance in power system stability management. The study showed that Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller is most commonly used control strategy such that majority of current research is geared towards optimizing the its gain parameters using bio inspired or intelligent algorithms such as particle swarm optimization (PSO), generic algorithm (GA), artificial bee colony (ABC), bacteria foraging optimization, teaching learning based optimization (TLBO) and their modified versions.