The application of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) is assumed to be wide in power system in regulating the system frequency in the near future. This paper provides an aggregate model of an interconnected multi-area thermal system with the incorporation of PEVs for frequency control in each of the three areas. Two degree of freedom proportional-integral-derivative (2DOF-PID) controller has been utilised for robust secondary control in all the three control areas. An optimisation technique inspired by nature named as wind-driven optimisation (WDO) technique is employed to decide the optimal values of the controller gains. The effectiveness of WDO optimised 2DOF-PID controller is verified by performing various comparative analysis with conventional PID controller under nominal system condition and random loading condition. An analysis has also been carried out to evaluate the system performance with variation in state of the integrated PEVs. The impact of introducing PEVs in the system in frequency regulation has been vigorously studied under different system conditions such as nominal, random loading condition, and simultaneous perturbation in two and three areas to testify their advantages. The comparisons reveal that with the integration of PEVs in the system, the system dynamics gets enhanced to a large extent.

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