Islanding detection using total variation‐based signal decomposition technique

Abstract

This study presents a passive islanding detection technique based on the approach of total variation filtering (TVF) for inverter-based distributed generation under noisy environment. Contamination of noise in the signal makes the islanding detection threshold less reliable. Therefore, the modal voltage signal is analysed through TVF-based decomposition procedure and several statistical features are obtained from its output. For decision making, the features are compared with the pre-specified threshold. To tackle the challenge of islanding detection in the presence of the high-quality factor load, phase angle of the positive sequence voltage is considered as the second level of detection criterion. The proposed scheme is validated on IEEE 34-bus standard distribution system. The scheme is tested under islanding as well as all possible non-islanding network disturbances. Hardware-in-loop results are also presented in support of the theory. A comparative analysis of the proposed algorithm with the well-established S-transform is presented. The proposed scheme is found to be working effectively and can detect islanding condition within three cycles of its inception.