This paper addresses the critical challenge of optimizing the energy efficiency of induction motors, which are pivotal components across diverse industrial sectors due to their substantial energy consumption. Given the non-measurable internal parameters of induction motors, parameter identification becomes a complex, multidimensional optimization problem characterized by highly nonlinear and multimodal error surfaces. Traditional optimization algorithms often weaken, yielding suboptimal results due to an inadequate balance between the exploration and exploitation phases. To overcome these limitations, this study introduces an Adaptive Weight Grey Wolf Optimizer (AWGWO) to enhance the accuracy and reliability of induction motor parameter estimation. The AWGWO incorporates an adaptive weight mechanism that dynamically adjusts the exploration and exploitation balance, effectively mitigating issues such as premature convergence to local optima. Extensive simulation validation was conducted across various induction motor models, including eight commercial motors, and demonstrated that AWGWO consistently outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of convergence speed, solution accuracy, and robustness in multimodal optimization landscapes. The AWGWO consistently exhibited faster convergence, significantly reducing premature convergence. Moreover, the adaptive weight mechanism enabled a more effective balance between exploration and exploitation, leading to higher accuracy in parameter estimation. Comparative analyses reveal that AWGWO outperforms existing algorithms not only in achieving lower error rates, but also in maintaining stability. This study significantly contributes to progress in the field by providing an effective tool for induction motor parameterization, thereby offering potential improvements in energy efficiency.

Electric vehicles usage and adoption have expanded rapidly over the last decade, as the global energy demand is shifting away from fossil fuels. The recent development of electric vehicle charging technology, which is a fast charging mode, enables an electric vehicle to be fully charged within 10 minutes. However, the generated harmonics, control complexity, and cost of fast charging are the main challenges that need to be addressed to further expand the electric vehicle fast charging technologies. In this manuscript, a new electric vehicle fast charger was designed by introducing the three-stage converters based on the integration between internal model controller with synchronized decoupled controller algorithms. The proposed charger can provide two types of charging approaches, namely alternating current (AC) fast charging and direct current (DC) fast charging. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed charger, the model is developed and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink 2018a platform. Additionally, experimental verification, which utilizes a digital signal processor (TMS320F28335), is conducted to further support the design concept and the simulation findings. These research results have indicated that the proposed charger is applicable for fast AC and DC charging. Moreover, the total harmonic distortion value for the input current is 1.55%, where it has constantly been maintained within the standard limits, thus showing the effectiveness of proposed charger in performing the charging process without causing any significant impact to the grid.

The growing interest in distributed generation (DG) in recent years has led to a number of generators connected to a distribution system. The integration of DGs in a distribution system has resulted in a network known as active distribution network due to the existence of bidirectional power flow in the system. Voltage rise issue is one of the predominantly important technical issues to be addressed when DGs exist in an active distribution network. This paper presents the application of the backtracking search algorithm (BSA), which is relatively new optimisation technique to determine the optimal settings of coordinated voltage control in a distribution system. The coordinated voltage control considers power factor, on-load tap-changer and generation curtailment control to manage voltage rise issue. A multi-objective function is formulated to minimise total losses and voltage deviation in a distribution system. The proposed BSA is compared with that of particle swarm optimisation (PSO) so as to evaluate its effectiveness in determining the optimal settings of power factor, tap-changer and percentage active power generation to be curtailed. The load flow algorithm from MATPOWER is integrated in the MATLAB environment to solve the multi-objective optimisation problem. Both the BSA and PSO optimisation techniques have been tested on a radial 13-bus distribution system and the results show that the BSA performs better than PSO by providing better fitness value and convergence rate.

The operation and control of electricity in distribution networks has faced great challenges as a large number of distributed generations (DGs) are integrated. Connection of distributed generations (DGs) in the distribution system offers advantages in terms of reducing distribution and transmission costs as well as encouraging the use of renewable energy sources. The power flow in the distribution systems is no longer moving in a single direction and this resulted the system to become as active distribution networks (ADN). One of the main problems in ADN is the voltage regulation issue which is to maintain the voltage to be within its permissible limits. Several methods of voltage control methods are available and focus is given in finding the optimal voltage control using artificial intelligence techniques. This paper presents an optimal and coordinated voltage control method while minimizing losses and voltage deviation of the network. The optimal and coordinated voltage control scheme is implemented on an IEEE 13 bus distribution network for loss and voltage deviation minimization in the networks. Firefly Algorithm (FA) which is a known heuristic optimization technique for finding the optimal solution is used in this work. The results are compared with another optimization method known as Backtracking Search Algorithm (BSA) for identifying the best setting for solving the voltage regulation problem. In order to solve the multi-objective optimization issue, the MATPOWER load flow simulation is integrated in the MATLAB environment with the optimization algorithm.