This article demonstrates the automatic generation control of a multi-area system incorporating various sources. Area-1 and area-2 consist of thermal and parabolic trough solar thermal plant (PTSTP) of fixed and random solar insolation, respectively, and area-3 comprises of thermal and realistic dish-stirling solar thermal system units. A maiden effort has been made to use a fractional order (FO) proportional-integral minus FO derivative with filter coefficient (FOPI-FODF) controller as a secondary controller. The controller gains are optimised using a novel algorithm called crow search algorithm. Comparisons of system dynamic response with and without renewable energy sources for FOPI-FODF, and for some commonly used integer order and FO controller's reveals the better performance of FOPI-FODF controller. A study comparing both fixed and random solar insolation in PTSTP of different areas have been tested. An accurate high-voltage direct current (AHVDC) line model is designed using inertia emulation strategy and is placed instead of AC tie line, and with parallel AC tie lines resulting in better system dynamic performances than AC tie line alone. The selection of the optimum location of AHVDC line in parallel AC tie line exposes the AHVDC line connected with the area where the system is disturbed.