Islanding Detection Method for Multi-Inverter Distributed Generation

Islanding detection is an essential function for safety and reliability in grid-connected distributed generation (DG) systems. Several methods for islanding detection are proposed, but most of them may fail under multi-source configurations, or they may produce important power quality degradation which gets worse with increasing DG penetration. This paper presents an active islanding detection algorithm for Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) based multi-source DG systems. The proposed method is based on the Voltage Positive Feedback (VPF) theory to generate a limited active power perturbation. Theoretical analyses were performed and simulations by MATLAB /Simulink /SimPowerSystems were used to evaluate the algorithm’s performance and its advantages concerning the time response and the effects on power quality, which turned out to be negligible. The algorithm performance was tested under critical conditions: load with unity power factor, load with high quality factor, and load matching DER’s powers.