A Passive Islanding Detection Method for Distribution Power Systems With Multiple Inverters

Abstract

The high penetration of grid-connected distributed energy resources (DERs) leads to a need for smart inverters to enhance their performance and minimize the negative impacts of these resources on grid behavior. However, the interconnection of these smart inverters may interfere with their anti-islanding algorithms, which creates detection difficulties. Advanced islanding detection techniques are therefore required to detect and disrupt islanding operations under such an environment with system’s disturbances and interferences. Even though various islanding detection methods have been developed in recent literature to identify islanding operations with high detection accuracy and minimized nondetection zone, these methods mainly focus on a single inverter system, which is incompatible in modern power system with high penetration of grid-connected inverters. In this article, an advanced passive islanding method is proposed for a single-phase distribution power system taking account of the interferences and disturbances brought by these grid-connected inverters. The effectiveness of the proposed passive islanding method is validated through experiments in a laboratory platform. Also, the experimental results have verified that the proposed methods can effectively terminate the islanding operation even with rich inverters’ interferences.