The incorporation of distributed energy resources (DERs) into the electricity grid yields environmental, technical, and economic benefits. However, in addition to the benefits, the widespread use of DERs causes technical issues. Islanding is a big concern in terms of equipment protection and personnel safety, and it should be detected as soon as possible. The proposed approach employs a passive islanding detection technique based on reactive power (Q). The Q was chosen following a comparison of five other indices. Comparative analysis reveals that Q has the highest sensitivity and accuracy for islanding recognition when compared to all other observed parameters. Different case studies have been performed considering the worst-case scenario to check the working efficiency of the proposed scheme that simply distinguishes the islanding conditions from non-islanding conditions, which include load, motor, and capacitor switching, various types of fault switching, DG tripping cases, and weak grid contribution. The proposed strategy is straightforward, with quick execution and simple implementation in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment on the IEEE 1547-2018 generic test system. With a small non-detection zone, islanding is detected in 0.038 s.

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Distributed generation (DG) resources integration into power system results in environmental and economic benefits. However, technical challenges may create many problems for the distribution system. Islanding detection is the topmost technical perspective regarding distribution system protection. This paper devised a passive islanding detection strategy that employed voltage phase angle (VPA). The VPA is selected after the performance assessment of 6 passive indices. Comparative study proves that VPA has the best accuracy and sensitivity compared to other indices parameters. The proposed technique is employed on a generic system that easily distinguished islanding situations from non-islanding cases such as load increment, load decrement, capacitor energization, capacitor de-energization, motor starting, motor unloading and various types of faults switching scenarios. The protective method is simple and has a quick interpretation algorithm as compared to other existing methods. The study is carried out on IEEE 1547 general test system in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. The proposed strategy has nearly zero non-detection zone.