The challenge of controlling frequency becomes greater as the complexity of a power network increases. The stability of a power system is highly dependent upon the robustness of the controller. This paper presents automatic generation control (AGC) of a four-area interconnected power system along with integrated renewable energy sources of PV and wind energy. The designed model is a challenge given the increased penetration levels of PV and wind along with a thermal-hydropower system. The addition of a hydropower system as a fourth type results in the pole of the open loop system of the hydropower system being located at the right half side of the s-plan. This demands a robust control. A novel MPC-(1 + PIDN) is designed for high-order interconnected areas (HOIA) to stabilize the frequency in a robust way. The salp swarm algorithm is adopted to optimize the parameters of the PIDN controller. The performance of the proposed controller under HOIA is tested in a unbalanced load environment with uncertainty in the power system. The proposed controller can effectively handle the frequency disruption by stabilizing it in 0.86s for Area-1, 1.08s for Area-2, 0.81s for Area-3, and 0.84s for Area-4 with an average time of 0.89s for all the areas, whereas the average time for GWO: PI-PD, MPC/PI and GA-PI is 3.48s , 10.36s and 18.47s , respectively. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller when compared to other controllers.