IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar,
India
Active Power Management of Isolated Renewable
Microgrid generating Power from Rooftop Solar
Arrays, Sewage Waters and Solid Urban Wastes of a
Smart City using Salp Swarm Algorithm
Amar Kumar Barik
Electrical Engineering Department
NIT Silchar
Silchar, India
akbeee@gmail.com
Abstract— This work is a maiden attempt to manage the
active power of an isolated renewable microgrid with Rooftop
solar arrays, Micro-hydro generator, Biomass fired combined
heat and power, Aqua-electrolyzer, and Fuel cells, by optimized
load frequency control using a recent Salp Swarm Algorithm.
The effort has put on to propose the mathematical model of a
renewable microgrid generating power from solar irradiances,
urban solid wastes, and sewage waters of a smart city like
Bhubaneswar, for a dual objective of power and waste
management. The importance of choosing the above combination
of resources for microgrid is the effective co-compensation with
climatic changes between solar PV and micro-hydro units
naturally. Since sufficient solar energy is available during
summer, but the water potential reduced subsequently for micro-
hydro power generation. In other hands, during monsoon, water
potential is highly available as rainwater adds to the sewage, but
there are insufficient sunrays for PV units. The Biomass-based
CHP is considered to give support to microgrid during non-
availability of solar energy. It becomes a great challenge to
coordinate between generation and load demand efficiently with
the considered sources of renewable energy due to their inherent
dependency towards climatic variations. To overcome this issue,
the responses of the system are studied for different scenarios of
renewable sources availability and load changes for optimal
frequency control. The proposed microgrid is simulated with
MATLAB-Simulink for four different scenarios and the
optimized responses are reported to be competent in maintaining
power frequency within the acceptable limit.
Keywords— Aqua-electrolyzer, Combined heat and power, Fuel
cell, Micro-hydro power, Rooftop solar PV, Salp swarm algorithm.
I. INTRODUCTION
Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Odisha is developing as
one of the smart city of our country. It’s historic monuments,
rich heritage and urbanisation attracts people from different
corners of the country as well as the foreign tourists, which
intensify population density in the city day-by-day. This leads
to various socio-ecological issues in the city. Some major
issues for a smart city are reliable power management, proper
waste management, and suitable communication facilitation
etc. This paper attempts to discuss some short of resolution
towards first two issues using waste to energy concepts along
978-1-5386-4581-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Dulal Chandra Das
Electrical Engineering Department
NIT Silchar
Silchar, India
dulal_nit@yahoo.co.in
with renewable energy harnessing for the city. The proposed
idea is to develop zone-wise distributed generation (DG) based
renewable microgrids that convert solid wastes and sewage
water into electricity which could be supplied to meet the
domestic consumer demand of that zone only, supported with
the power from rooftop solar photovoltaic (RSPV) arrays [1].
This may reduce loading of the conventional grids, which
provide power to industries, commercial buildings and bulk
power consumers of the city.
The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE),
India had initiated National Solar Mission programs to promote
grid connected RSPV units [2]. Incorporating this mission, the
power from solar energy could be harnessed during normal day
time by the RSPV arrays mounted on roof of the taller
buildings of the city [3]. The municipal solid wastes of the city
collected daily needs to be segregated as recyclable and non-
recyclable masses near the dumping yards. The non-recyclable
wastes could be used for power generation in Biomass fired
combined heat and power (BCHP) plant after suitable
processing and mixing with standard biomasses (such as
agricultural residues) [4]. The wastes after incineration reduced
to small fraction of the original and these BCHP residues could
be used for land fill, thereby reducing the chances of
environmental pollution of the city.
The waste waters of every household of a specific zone of
city could be channelized to a common sewage canal and
stored in a small reservoir, outskirt of the city for settling down
the dissolved wastes, and prior water treatment. A small-head
dam could be constructed on that reservoir and power could be
generated using Micro-hydro turbine generator (MHTG) units,
from those treated waste waters before they flow to the
mainstream or river [5]. This reduces the chances of river water
pollution. The excess power produced with multiple MHTG
units during rainy days could be utilized by an Aqua-
electrolizer plant (AE) to produce Hydrogen (H2) gas and
stored, to be used as fuel in Hydrogen Fuel Cell (FC) units
during peak demand hours [6, 7]. There is possibility of such
microgrids for Bhubaneswar, near Kuakhai and Daya rivers,
close to dumping yards or at the ends of sewage canals
depending on the availability of land, resources and other
feasible aspects.
 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar, India

The National Solar Mission programs by MNRE, circulated

Practices Guide for implementation of state level RSPV
programs [1], and grid connected RSPV [2]. The market
potential, operating strategies, financing and cost recovery of
RSPV models are elaborated by Sundaray et al. [3]. The
schemes and uses of different biomass for power generation in
BCHP units worldwide are discussed by Arbon [4]. Various
strategies for municipal solid waste management methods and
technologies to generate electricity in BCHP are discussed by
Rajasekhar et al., along with remarkable reduction of biomass
waste from landfill [8]. A sewage based hydro power plant is
proposed by Tamrakar et al., and power generation using
municipality waste water is discussed in detail [5]. The
modelling of MHTG unit with Archimedes turbine and
interconnecting the output to national grid are proposed by
Raza et al. [9]. Modelling and successful incorporation of AE
and FC units in Hybrid isolated microgrid are discussed by Das
et al. [6]. The tuning of PID controllers using a popular
optimisation technique, Particle swarm optimization (PSO) for Fig. 1. Structural diagram of proposed renewable microgrid
load frequency control (LFC) of Hybrid microgrid is also
discussed by Das et al. [7]. This work attempts to employ a
recent optimisation technique called Salp swarm algorithm
(SSA) as proposed in [10] to tune the PID controllers used in
the proposed microgrid.
The objective of the work is to manage active power
sharing economically by optimising the frequency response of
proposed microgrid with optimal utilization of renewable
resources and municipal wastes of the city. The powers from
MHTG unit of the proposed microgrid are expected to meet the
base loads during normal weathers. All the available power
from RSPV arrays in good weathered day-times are given the Fig. 2. Block diagram model of proposed renewable microgrid for LFC
highest priorities to be utilised by the microgrid to meet the
consumer demands. The power output of BCHP unit are given
the lowest priorities, which supports the microgrid during night A. Rooftop solar photo voltaic array (RSPV) unit
time loading and bad weather scenarios when suitable solar The RSPV unit consists of arrays of solar PV panels along
irradiance are not available. The FC and AE units are installed with maximum power point trackers mounted on the rooftop
for suitably storing the surplus power during off-peak hours that convert solar energy into electrical energy and a DC-AC
and supplying the excess demand during peak hours solar inverter to interface generated solar power (PRSPV) to the
respectively, in the proposed microgrid. AC bus of microgrid. The output power (in Watts) of RSPV
array varies with surface temperature of PV cell (Ta in degree
Apart from introduction, section II presents working details Celsius) and irradiance (Φ in kW/m2), which can be
and modelling of the proposed system along with formulation mathematically expressed as (1),
of objective function. A brief idea of SSA is conferred in III.
The simulation results of the proposed work are discussed in IV PSPV = η S{1 − 0.005(25 + Ta )}Φ (1)
and V concludes the paper.
where, η (0.09 to 0.12) and S (=4084m2) are the conversion
II. MODELLING OF PROPOSED RENEWABLE MICROGRID efficiency and measured surface area of the solar arrays
respectively [6]. The linearized transfer function model of
The model of multi-unit based isolated renewable microgrid RSPV system for low frequency domain analysis can be
is designed considering ecological aspects and economic expressed as (2).
operation with optimal utilization of renewable resources of the
city. This microgrid is proposed to have a MHTG unit, a BCHP K RSPV
GRSPV ( s ) = (2)
unit, an AE unit, a FC unit and several RSPV arrays with linear 1 + sTRSPV
loads. The complete structural diagram of proposed microgrid
is shown in Fig. 1, and the linearized model of the microgrid
B. Micro-hydro turbine generator (MHTG) unit
for optimal LFC is viewed in Fig. 2. The mathematical
modelling of each units are briefly discussed individually in The linearized transfer function model of waste water based
this section. The LFC of this microgrid is studied for optimal MHTG unit may be formulated as (3), with reference to
sharing of available renewable generators on the basis of their conventional low head hydro power generation system,
availability to meet the consumer demand at every instant. considering the function of speed governor, penstock and hydro
turbine [8, 9].
 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar, India

§ tsim
1 ·§ 1 + sTRS ·§ 1 − sTHT ·
GMHTG ( s) = ¨¨ ¸¨
¸¨ ¸¨
¸¨ 1 + 0.5sT ¸¸ (3) Minimize, J= ³0 t §¨ Δf ·¸ dt
© 1 + sTHG ¹ © 1 + sTRH ¹© HT ¹ © ¹
K P min ≤ K P ≤ K P max (9)
C. Biomass fired combined heat and power (BCHP) unit
The linearized transfer function model of solid waste based subject to : K I min ≤ K I ≤ K I max
BCHP unit may be formulated as (4), with reference to the K D min ≤ K D ≤ K D max
conventional fossil fuel fired thermal generation system,
considering the function of speed governor, re-heater and steam The values of all the parameters considered for designing
turbine [11, 12]. the proposed system are listed in table I with their
nomenclatures. The linearized model of proposed system
§ 1 · § 1 + sK RTR ·§ 1 · shown in Fig. 2, is simulated with SSA to minimise the
GBCHP (s) = ¨¨ ¸¸ ¨¨ ¸¸ ¨¨ ¸¸ (4) objective function given in (9). The concept of SSA algorithm
© 1 + sTBSG ¹ © 1 + sTR ¹ © 1 + sTBCT ¹ is briefly discussed in III.

D. Aqua-electrolyser & Fuel cell units TABLE I. NOMENCLATURE AND VALUES OF DESIGN PARAMETERS

The AE unit absorbs surplus power of microgrid during off- Symbols Nomenclatures Values
peak hours, via an AC-DC converter to generate Hydrogen (H2)
gases. Those H2 gases are stored to be used as fuel in the FC KRSPV, TRSPV The gain and time constants of RSPV unit 1.0, 1.8s
unit for generating power during peak hours and fed to
microgrid via DC-AC converter. The linearized transfer Speed governor and Turbine time
THG, THT 0.2s, 1.0s
constants of MHTG unit
function model of AE & FC units may be expressed as (5) and
Governer reset and transient droop time
(6) respectively [6, 7]. TRS, TRH
constants of MHTG unit
5s, 28.75s
K AE Speed governor and Turbine time
GAE ( s) = (5) TSGB, TBCT 0.08s, 0.3s
1 + sTAE constants of BCHP unit
Reheat gain and reheat time constants of
K FC KBR, TBR BCHP unit
0.3, 10s
GFC ( s) = (6)
1 + sTFC KFC, TFC The gain and time constants of FC unit 0.01, 4.0s

E. System Dynamics and Generator model KAE, TAE The gain and time constants of AE unit 0.002, 0.5s
The net change in power at any instant for each microgrid M, D
Equivalent inertia and damping constants
0.2, 0.012
of the proposed system may be estimated as (7), of microgrid
Frequency droop factor of microgrid
ΔPe = PRSPV + PMHTG + PBCHP + PFC − PAE − PdL (7) R 2.4
(Hz/p.u.MW)
Frequency deviations (Hz) and Net load
where, corresponding subscript defines the power for Δf, PdL --
demands (p.u.) of microgrid
respective units, and the equivalent generator dynamics model
for the overall system of the microgrid can be formulated as (8) tsim Simulation time in seconds 120s

[11].
Δf 1
= = GSYS ( s)
ΔPe D + sM
F. Objective function formulation
The proposed system consists of two controllers;
Controller1 is deployed to control the power output of MHTG
and BCHP units, whereas Controller2, controls the function of
AE and FC units. Classical PID controllers are chosen for
those two, due to their simple construction and reliable
performances [12]. Since, the Integral of Time-weighted
absolute error (ITAE) provides better performance in
minimizing overshoots and oscillations than Integral squared
error (ISE) and Integral absolute error (IAE) [12]. The
objective function is formulated as (9) considering ITAE
criteria for the proposed system to tune PID controller gains.
III. SALP SWARM ALGORITHM
(8) Salps are barrel-shaped, planktonic tunicates belonging to
order Salpida and family Salpidae. They often form a swarm
called salp chain in deep sea as shown in Fig. 3, for achieving
better locomotion using rapid coordinated changes and foraging
[10].
The behaviour of Salps chain is mathematically modelled as
SSA by S. Mirjalili [10], considering two groups. The salp at
the front of chain guides the swarm, called leader and the rest
called followers, follow the leader salp successively around the
food source following each other.
The population of salps in a swarm with N search agents
could be mathematically initialized by (10), considering upper
and lower bounds (lb & ub) for ith dimension over total number
of parameters dim, as dimensions.
X i = lbi + (ubi − lbi )rand () (10)
IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar, India

The position update of the leader salp Xj1 with respect to the
target food source Fj in jth dimension is formulated as in (11),
considering two random numbers c2 and c3 [10].

­° F j + c1 (lb j + (ub j − lb j )c2 ),c3 ≥ 0

X 1j = ® (11)
°̄ F j − c1 (lb j + (ub j − lb j )c2 ),c3 < 0
Whereas, the exploitations and explorations are balanced by
the coefficient c1 defined by (12) for the current iteration l,
having maximum number of iterations MaxItr [10].
2
§ 4l ·
−¨ ¸
© MaxItr ¹
c1 = 2e (12)
Fig. 3. Chain of slaps [10]
The position of the followers are formulated in accordance
with the Newton’s law of motion considering zero initial
velocity. The updated position of ith salp (i >1) in jth dimension
could be given by (13) [10].
1 i
X ij = ( X + X ij−1 )
2 j
(13)
The optimization process of SSA as discussed in literature
is illustrated with an approximate flowchart illustrated in Fig. 4.
The algorithm is applied to optimize the proposed model by
tuning PID controller gains within specified upper and lower
bounds, and the simulation results for different scenarios are
discussed in IV.

IV. SIMULATION RESULT AND DISCUSSIONS

The proposed model of renewable microgrid as shown in
Fig. 2, is being simulated using MATLAB-Simulink (R2014a)
software in a Lenovo PC (Core i7-4770 CPU, 4GB RAM),
considering four case studies. Initially, the proposed system is
simulated using both SSA and PSO algorithm considering 1%
rise in load, and the convergence curves of objective function J
is plotted in Fig. 5. The SSA is preferred over PSO to tune the
PID controller gains for simulation studies of all the cases
further after comparing the convergence curves from Fig. 5.

Fig. 5. Comparsion of convergence curve for SSA & PSO

Considering some extreme climatic scenarios affecting the

renewable resources used in proposed renewable microgrid, the
frequency responses of the system are carried out using SSA
optimised PID controller in following four cases and the
Fig. 4. Flowchart for SSA optimised controller gains are listed in table II for each case.
 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar, India

TABLE II. OPTIMIZED CONTROLLER GAINS

Optimized
Case-1 Case-2 Case-3 Case-4
parameter
Jmin 38.7902 35.3395 180.0595 86.5721

Kp1 -301.7724 -216.3184 229.0635 -368.2717

Ki1 -260.6094 -524.7909 -302.0163 -311.8256

Kd1 -814.8964 -519.5115 -553.1334 -798.6846

Kp2 -657.7553 -476.5138 998.6026 -994.9653 Fig. 8. Contribution of MHTG, BCHP and FC units to Load demand

Ki2 -144.4077 -72.4902 481.3613 -4.9168

Kd2 -309.3695 -963.8856 597.0503 -551.5478

A. Case – 1: Availability of Solar Energy

This case assumes normal day scenario with appropriate
sunrays and water heads in the reservoir for power generation
by the proposed microgrid. The contributions of MHTG, RSPV
and FC units to meet the demand with 10% rise from t=40s to
120s in this case is plotted in Fig. 6. The initial frequency
response settles before 10s and maintained throughout as
shown in Fig. 7 with zoomed view inset for small ripple during
load change.
Fig. 9. Frequency response of microgrid in case 2
C. Case – 3: Excess Hydro potential during rainy weather
This case is considered during monsoon or rainy days,
when there is no sunlight, but sufficient water head available to
generate power. The surplus power is utilised by AE unit to
produce H2 gas which could be stored to be used in FC unit as
per requirement. The entire power output of MHTG unit is
supplying the microgrid with a 10% drop in demand till t=80s
and the excess power is being utilised by AE unit from t=17s to
t=80s as observed in Fig. 10. The frequency responses for this
case is shown in Fig. 11, with an inset zoomed view during
load change, which is smooth, after initial settling before 18s.

Fig. 6. Contribution of MHTG, RSPV and FC units to Load demand

Fig. 10. Contribution of MHTG, BCHP, RSPVand AE to Load demand

Fig. 7. Frequency response of microgrid in case 1

B. Case – 2: Non-availability of Solar Energy

This case is considered with lacks of RSPV support due to
bad weather or night time loading. The MHTG, BCHP and FC
unit contributes the same load with 10% rise from t=40s to
120s, as plotted in Fig. 8. The initial frequency response settles
before 18s and maintained throughout as shown in Fig. 9 with Fig. 11. Load demand and frequency response in case 3
zoomed view inset for small ripple during load change.
 IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Smart-City Energy Security and Power (ICSESP-2018), March 28-30, 2018, Bhubaneswar, India
D. Case – 4: Response to frequently varying load
This case is assumed for the extreme scenario with
frequently varying loads due to switching of heavy
equipment/loads in the microgrid. The contribution of MHTG,
RSPV and FC units are simulated, considering a varying load
that initially dropped to 10% till t=20s, then rises 5%, again
increases 10% at t=40s, remained 100% from t=60s to 80s, and
then drops 10% as shown in Fig. 12. The initial frequency
response settles before 10s and maintained throughout as
shown in Fig. 13, with small ripples during each load change,
whose zoomed views are inset at each point of change.
Fig. 12. Contribution of MHTG, RSPV and FC units to Varying Load
Fig. 13. Frequency response of microgrid in case 1
The frequency response for each of the above four cases
interpret the effectiveness SSA for proposed renewable
microgrid towards active power management.
V. CONCLUSION
The overall frequency response of the system is observed
adaptive with four different scenarios of source and load
variations using SSA tuned PID controller. The study shows
satisfactory active power management of the proposed
renewable microgrid along with economic waste management
of the city in different climates. The initial high ripples of
system frequency are due to the staring time required by the
MHTG and BCHP units to generate rated power. This could be
reduced by incorporating a diesel unit in the microgrid as it
starts generating rated power with less time. The work could be
further extended for LFC of interconnected renewable
microgrids in future studies.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors extend hearty thanks to Electrical Engineering
department, & TEQIP-III, NIT Silchar, for providing all
supports and funding towards completion of this work.
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