This article presents a novel load frequency control (LFC) approach using colliding bodies optimizer (CBO) for frequency stabilization of interlinked multiarea electric power systems. The optimal parameters of the suggested CBO‐based proportional–integral–derivative‐filter controller ascertain an effective LFC solution. First, a well‐known and widely used linearized two‐area nonreheated thermal power system is examined to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach. The effectiveness of the proposed method is analyzed by comparing the outcomes of several recently presented LFC schemes. The performance analysis shows a settling time improvement of 3.10%, 14.29%, and 18.66% in the case of area‐1 and area‐2 frequencies and tie‐line power deviations compared with an imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA)‐based controller. The robustness of the proposed scheme is also evaluated in the presence of various operating scenarios. Additionally, the work is extended to a two‐area nonreheated hydrothermal power system. The proposed method shows an improvement of over 60% in the performance index compared with several existing techniques‐based controllers such as optics‐inspired optimization, gray‐wolf optimization, quasi‐oppositional differential search algorithm, bacterial foraging optimization algorithm, and ICA.