Design and performance analysis of horse herd optimization MPPT operated PV-wind-battery storage hybrid structure tied to DC grid under wide fluctuations

The necessity for greater utilization of renewable energy is growing due to escalating energy prices, apprehensions regarding nuclear energy, climate change, and disruptions in the electrical grid. The operation of decentralized renewable energy sources integrated with the grid makes energy management an essential obligation in this scenario due to their irregular nature and mismatch between their load pattern and production, making a storage solution a necessity. Here an attempt has been made to develop a futuristic direct current (DC) grid incorporating renewable energy sources while addressing uncertainties in operating conditions for both sources and loads with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for photovoltaic (PV) systems being designed and implemented using a novel horse herd optimization algorithm (HHOA) for both standalone and DC grid connected mode. A powerful lookup table-based model is designed for accurately tracking the maximum power point for a wind energy system (WES). The implementation includes operation of interconnected PV-wind-battery energy storage systems (BESS) and DC grid under source and load fluctuating conditions. An in-depth transient performance analysis is conducted to evaluate the designed interconnected system's performance for wide weather fluctuations, with quantitative results indicating satisfactory performance of the developed HHOA-based MPPT across different operating scenarios. A detailed parameter sensitivity analysis is also presented for several HHOA parameter variations. Furthermore, the perturb and observe (P&O) method MPPT technique for PV system is also employed and compared both graphically and quantitatively with our designed HHOA-based MPPT controller to establish the superiority of our designed system.