Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) is considered a propitious solution for an environmentally friendly energy source. A precise model of PEMFC for accurate identification of its polarization curve and an in-depth understanding of all its operating characteristics attracted the interest of many researchers. In this paper, recent meta-heuristic optimization methods have been successfully applied to evaluate the unknown parameters of PEMFC models, particularly Marine Predators Algorithm (MPA) and Political Optimizer (PO) techniques. The proposed optimization algorithms have been tested on three different commercial PEMFC stacks, namely BCS 500-W, SR-12PEM 500 W, and 250 W stack under various operating conditions. The sum of square errors (SSE) between the results obtained by the application of the estimated parameters and the experimentally measured results of the fuel cell stacks was considered as the objective function of the optimization problem. In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, the results are compared with those obtained in the literature. Moreover, the I/V curves obtained by the application of MPA and PO showed a clear matching with datasheet curves for all the studied cases. Statistical analysis has been performed to evaluate the robustness of the MPA and PO techniques. Finally, the PEMFC model based on the MPA technique surpasses all compared algorithms in terms of the solution accuracy and the convergence speed. The obtained results confirmed the superiority and reliability of the applied approach of the MPA algorithm. The results prove that the MPA algorithm has a superior performance based on its reliability.

One of the most significant barriers to broadening the use of solar energy is low conversion efficiency, which necessitates the development of novel techniques to enhance solar energy conversion equipment design. The correct modeling and estimation of solar cell parameters are critical for the control, design, and simulation of PV panels to achieve optimal performance. Conventional optimization approaches have several limitations when solving this complicated issue, including a proclivity to become caught in some local optima. In this study, a Growth Optimization (GO) algorithm is developed and simulated from humans’ learning and reflection capacities in social growing activities. It is based on mimicking two stages. First, learning is a procedure through which people mature by absorbing information from others. Second, reflection is examining one’s weaknesses and altering one’s learning techniques to aid in one’s improvement. It is developed for estimating PV parameters for two different solar PV modules, RTC France and Kyocera KC200GT PV modules, based on manufacturing technology and solar cell modeling. Three present-day techniques are contrasted to GO’s performance which is the energy valley optimizer (EVO), Five Phases Algorithm (FPA), and Hazelnut tree search (HTS) algorithm. The simulation results enhance the electrical properties of PV systems due to the implemented GO technique. Additionally, the developed GO technique can determine unexplained PV parameters by considering diverse operating settings of varying temperatures and irradiances. For the RTC France PV module, GO achieves improvements of 19.51%, 1.6%, and 0.74% compared to the EVO, FPA, and HTS considering the PVSD and 51.92%, 4.06%, and 8.33% considering the PVDD, respectively. For the Kyocera KC200GT PV module, the proposed GO achieves improvements of 94.71%, 12.36%, and 58.02% considering the PVSD and 96.97%, 5.66%, and 61.20% considering the PVDD, respectively.

Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) is a complicated and demanding problem for power engineers. ELD relates to the minimization of the economic cost of production, thereby allocating the produced power by each unit in the most possible economic manner. In recent years, emphasis has been laid on minimization of emissions, in addition to cost, resulting in the Combined Economic and Emission Dispatch (CEED) problem. The solutions of the ELD and CEED problems are mostly dominated by metaheuristics. The performance of the Chameleon Swarm Algorithm (CSA) for solving the ELD problem was tested in this work. CSA mimics the hunting and food searching mechanism of chameleons. This algorithm takes into account the dynamics of food hunting of the chameleon on trees, deserts, and near swamps. The performance of the aforementioned algorithm was compared with a number of advanced algorithms in solving the ELD and CEED problems, such as Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA), Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), and Earth Worm Algorithm (EWA). The simulated results established the efficacy of the proposed CSA algorithm. The power mismatch factor is the main item in ELD problems. The best value of this factor must tend to nearly zero. The CSA algorithm achieves the best power mismatch values of $3.16\times {10}^{-13}$, $4.16\times {10}^{-12}$ and $1.28\times {10}^{-12}$ for demand loads of 700, 1000, and 1200 MW, respectively, of the ELD problem. The CSA algorithm achieves the best power mismatch values of $6.41\times {10}^{-13}$, $8.92\times {10}^{-13} \mathrm{and} 1.68\times {10}^{-12}$ for demand loads of 700, 1000, and 1200 MW, respectively, of the CEED problem. Thus, the CSA algorithm was found to be superior to the algorithms compared in this work.

Attaining highly secure and safe operation of the grid with acceptable voltage levels has become a difficult issue for electricity companies that must adopt remedial actions. The usage of a PV solar farm inverter as a static synchronous compensator (or PVSTATCOM device) throughout the night has recently been proposed as a way to enhance the system performance. In this article, the novel artificial rabbits’ optimization algorithm (AROA) is developed for minimizing both the daily energy losses and the daily voltage profile considering different 24 h loadings. The novel AROA is inspired from the natural surviving strategies of rabbits. The novel AROA is tested on a typical IEEE 33-node distribution network including three scenarios. Different scenarios are implemented considering PV/STATCOM allocations throughout the day. The effectiveness of the proposed AROA is demonstrated in comparison to differential evolution (DE) algorithm and golden search optimization (GSO). The PVSTATCOM is adequately allocated based on the proposed AROA, where the energy losses are greatly reduced with 54.36% and the voltage deviations are greatly improved with 43.29%. Moreover, the proposed AROA provides no violations in all constraints while DE fails to achieve these limits. Therefore, the proposed AROA shows greater dependability than DE and GSO. Moreover, the voltage profiles at all distribution nodes all over the daytime hours are more than the minimum limit of 95%.