Islanding Fault Detection in Microgrids—A Survey

Abstract

<jats:p>This paper provides an overview of islanding fault detection in microgrids. Islanding fault is a condition in which the microgrid gets disconnected from the microgrid unintentionally due to any fault in the utility grid. This paper surveys the extensive literature concerning the development of islanding fault detection techniques which can be classified into remote and local techniques, where the local techniques can be further classified as passive, active, and hybrid. Various detection methods in each class are studied, and advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. A comprehensive list of references is used to conduct this survey, and opportunities and directions for future research are highlighted.</jats:p>

An Islanding Detection Technique for Inverter-Based Distributed Generation in Microgrids

“…The microgrid (MG) is one of the energy provision concepts that has attracted a lot of attention with the increasing penetration of DGs [5]. It is worth noting that the islanding conditions should be correctly detected in MGs as well [6]. In view of the fact that the operation, control, safety, and protection strategies would be different in intentional island mode and grid-connected mode [7][8][9][10], it is also necessary to implement an efficient scheme to detect the unintentional islanding conditions in MGs.…”

“…So far, many schemes have been proposed for islanding detection in MGs, which can be categorized into remote and local schemes [6,14]. Remote islanding detection schemes need telecommunication channels and infrastructures, since they operate based on measurements and information received from both the utility grid and MG sides.…”

“…This requirement increases the cost and complexity of these schemes compared to local islanding detection schemes that need only local measurements and information. Local schemes can also be categorized into passive, active, and hybrid schemes [6,14]. Passive schemes decide based on the local measurements and predefined thresholds without any changes in MGs, while active schemes usually inject perturbations to MGs to decide based on the consequent changes in local measurements [15,16].…”

“…A hybrid scheme is a combination of passive and active schemes [17,18]. Among the various local islanding detection schemes, passive schemes have the lowest cost, lowest complexity, and highest detection speed and, unlike active schemes, do not have negative effects on power quality [6]. However, the non-detection zone of passive schemes is usually higher compared to active and hybrid schemes [19].…”

A Novel Structure of a Power System Stabilizer for Microgrids

“…Furthermore, a failure detection method using various machine learning techniques is proposed in [33,34]. Mehdi et al analyze various detection methods as well as advantages and disadvantages of islanding fault detection [35]. These methods can contribute to improving the stability of microgrids in conjunction with protection relay.…”