Renewable Energy: B. Indu Rani, M. Srikanth, G. Saravana Ilango, C. Nagamani

Renewable Energy 51 (2013) 189e196
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene
An active islanding detection technique for current controlled inverter

B. Indu Rani, M. Srikanth, G. Saravana Ilango*, C. Nagamani
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper presents an active islanding detection technique suitable for current controlled inverters. The
Received 28 December 2011 method is based on reducing the magnitude of the injected current periodically and monitoring the
Accepted 23 September 2012 voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC). Under grid failure, the change in voltage at the PCC
Available online 18 October 2012
exceeds the allowable voltage threshold and islanding is detected. The change in the PCC voltage
depends on the ratio by which current is reduced and is independent of the magnitude of current. Hence
Keywords:
the voltage threshold remains the same irrespective of the loading conditions. A simple control circuit is
Anti islanding
incorporated into the inverter control to enable islanding detection. The perturbation caused by this
Distributed generation
Grid connected inverter
method does not affect the zero crossing of the inverter current nor introduce any distortion as in case of
Photovoltaics other active anti islanding techniques. The performance of the proposed technique applied to a current
controlled inverter is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The feasibility of the technique is
ascertained by conducting experimental test on the prototype unit built in the laboratory. The algorithm
is implemented on an ALTERA CYCLONE II FPGA board and the results are presented to show that the
proposed method can effectively detect the islanding condition regardless of the load conditions.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction at the point of common coupling (PCC) including frequency, phase

shift and harmonics to identify an islanding [7]. The most basic
Rapid technological developments in generation and storage of and universal means of detecting islanding is by establishing an
energy, the growing concern on environmental issues have focused over voltage relay (OVR), an under voltage relay (UVR), an over
the attention on alternative energy sources such as solar and wind frequency relay (OFR) and an under frequency relay (UFR) [8].
[1]. The power generated from these sources is transferred to the The relays operate to shut down the inverter when the utility
grid through utility interfaced converters. One of the main issues voltage/frequency deviates from set values. In the phase jump
that are to be considered when a Distributed Generator (DG) is detection method, the phase of inverter current is instantaneously
connected to the utility is capability of the generator to detect synchronized at zero crossing with phase of voltage. Considerable
islanding conditions [2]. The islanding condition occurs when phase difference can be identified in the event of islanding but
a portion of the utility system that contains both load and distrib- problem arises when the load power factor is unity [9]. The
uted resources remains energized while it is isolated from the advantage of passive method is that it is simple and does not have
remainder of the utility system [3]. IEEE standard recommends an impact on the normal operation of the DG system. However,
disconnecting all distributed generators immediately after the when the inverter power matches with the load power, the amount
formation of island. Islanding can be intentional or unintentional of frequency or voltage deviation will not be sufficient to detect the
[4]. Intentional islanding may be due to preplanned event such as occurrence of islanding. Thus, passive islanding detection methods
maintenance and in case of an unintentional island, the DG should suffer from large non detection zones (NDZs). NDZs are defined as
be disconnected within 2 s after the grid failure [5]. the loading conditions for which an islanding detection method
Islanding detection methods can be categorized into passive and would fail to operate in a timely manner [10].
active methods [6]. Passive methods detect the voltage abnormality To overcome the shortcoming of the passive methods and
improve the islanding detection capability, active islanding detec-
tion methods [11] are employed. These methods periodically
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: indu_b04@yahoo.com (B. Indu Rani), srikanth.mudiyula@
introduce perturbations into the converters output to detect the
gmail.com (M. Srikanth), gsilango@nitt.edu (G. Saravana Ilango), cnmani@nitt.edu variations in system behavior and relate them to an islanding
(C. Nagamani). condition. The active frequency drift (AFD) method [12] introduces
0960-1481/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2012.09.019
190 B. Indu Rani et al. / Renewable Energy 51 (2013) 189e196
Inverter
S2 S1
L1
grid
Vdc
R L C
A PLL
Ir
Sin Vd
Selector E Counter
Ic
Gate Gate Iref

pulse X
pulses
generator
Current controller
E
V Vd
Trip logic
signal circuit
1/Z
TH C. I
Islanding detection
ALTERA CYCLONE II FPGA BOARD
Fig. 1. Schematic of the PV system with islanding detection.
perturbations in the frequency of inverter current and any devia- incorporated into the inverter control, voltage threshold indepen-
tion in the voltage frequency indicates the occurrence of islanding. dent of load and no phase shift or frequency shift or distortion in
However, this method fails to detect the island when the load phase the output waveform and islanding detection without degrading
angle matches with the phase offset generated by perturbing the the power quality.
frequency. The active frequency drift with positive feedback
(AFDPF) method [13] detects the islanding by forcing the frequency 2. System description
of PCC voltage to drift up or down. This method introduces zero
intervals in the converter output current waveform and reduces the A simple active islanding detection suitable for current
power quality. The sliding mode frequency shift method (SMS) [14] controlled inverters in which the DC link control is decoupled from
controls the phase angle of the converter output current as the ac line current control [18e21] is developed. The system
a function of PCC voltage frequency. Under grid failure, the method considered for study involves a grid interfaced inverter, a parallel
relies on an uncontrollable, externally controlled perturbation and RLC load connected at the PCC and the grid and the schematic of the
if the perturbation is small, the islanding may not be detected system is shown in Fig. 1. The current control of the inverter is
within the specified time. The auto phase shift (APS) detection achieved by using a hysteresis current controller and the reference
method [15] is a modified SMS method which introduces an initial signal for the hysteresis current controller is generated as a func-
value in the phase shift perturbation. However, several parameters tion of the phase of the grid voltage. A PLL circuit is used to generate
are presented in the phase shift algorithm which is to be optimized. the phase angle of the grid voltage. The reference current for the
The improved IM-SMS method [16] which overcomes the limita- controller is given by
tions of SMS and APS methods, injects disturbances into the phase
of converter output current. A small distortion exists in the current
id Ir Sin q
waveform under normal conditions. The Adaptive Logic Phase Shift ¼ (1)
iq 0
(ALPS) [17] algorithm regulates the additional phase shift at an
islanding situation and evaluates the effect of every phase shift.
This algorithm yields a quick phase shift in an islanding situation
but introduces a small phase shift in the output waveform. Though Ir A
the active methods tend to have a faster response and a smaller non Selector E Sin
Counter PLL
detection zone compared to passive methods, the power quality of
the inverter is inevitably degraded by the perturbation.
gate
This paper presents an active islanding detection algorithm
pulse
suitable for current controlled inverters. The inverter current X
reference is modified periodically by reducing its magnitude and
the voltage at the PCC is monitored. When the change in PCC Ic
voltage exceeds the allowable threshold, islanding is detected. The
salient features of the proposed method are simple control circuit Fig. 2. Control circuit for periodic current perturbation.

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Renewable Energy 51 (2013) 189e196

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

An active islanding detection technique for current controlled inverter

1. Introduction at the point of common coupling (PCC) including frequency, phase

Gate Gate Iref

Fig. 1. Schematic of the PV system with islanding detection.

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