A novel passive islanding detection technique for converter-based distributed generation systems

With the increased popularity of distributed generation (DG) in power systems, issues such as unintentional islanding should be efficiently resolved. Islanding condition occurs when part of the electrical power system is disconnected from the rest of the grid and is still energized by a DG unit. Conventional passive islanding detection approaches utilize the power system parameters such as the change of voltage magnitude, frequency deviation, and voltage phase displacement. The main challenge in these approaches is the dependency of these parameters on the islanding conditions which can render some of these approaches ineffective. This paper proposes a novel and a computationally inexpensive passive islanding detection technique for converter-based distributed generation systems. The proposed technique utilizes the converter-induced ripples in the instantaneous voltage amplitude at the point of common coupling to detect islanding. The proposed technique was modeled in a converter-based DG network with photo-voltaic arrays. The proposed technique model was tested using a wide range of islanding and non-islanding conditions and was able to accurately detect islanding under all DG loading conditions.