Laboratory Evaluation of a Phasor-Based Islanding Detection Method

Constantly growing distributed energy generation based on renewable sources creates a number of new challenges for electrical power system operation. One of the challenges is islanding detection. Unintentional islanding, which can cause health and safety hazards for the personnel, is currently being experienced by a growing number of consumers/prosumers especially in the case of photovoltaic inverters. This work presents a new islanding detection method based on synchrophasor measurements. The proposed method works in either a passive or hybrid mode. In a passive mode, a single phasor measurement unit (PMU) in the island region is used. In a hybrid mode, one PMU in the island and another one outside the island are exploited. The proposed method was verified in conducted laboratory tests that confirmed the applicability of PMUs data for effective detection and monitoring of unintentional islanding.