Assessment of Anti-Islanding Schemes on a Distribution System with High DER Penetration and Dynamic VAR Compensators

Abstract

The recently introduced power-electronics-based dynamic VAR compensator (DVC) offers an effective solution in mitigating the impacts that high penetration distributed energy resources (DERs) have on distribution systems. One of the concerns about adopting these devices is their impact on distribution system protection, especially islanding detection. This paper proposes a hardware-in-loop (HIL) test-bed based approach to investigate the performance of islanding detection schemes on a distribution feeder. This approach facilitates the assessment of protection system performance under more realistic conditions by emulating actual devices and a distribution system. The results are based on an actual case study that is outlined to show the effectiveness of existing passive anti-islanding schemes and assess the impact of a DVC on islanding detection.