See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/260518660

Matlab/Simulink implementation & simulation

of islanding detection using passive methods

CONFERENCE PAPER NOVEMBER 2013

DOI: 10.1109/IEEEGCC.2013.6705797

CITATION READS

1 423

5 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:

L. Ben-Brahim Adel Gastli

Qatar University Qatar University
58 PUBLICATIONS 725 CITATIONS 89 PUBLICATIONS 686 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Nasser A. Al-Emadi
Qatar University
14 PUBLICATIONS 52 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Available from: Adel Gastli

Retrieved on: 20 December 2015
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
Matlab/Simulink Implementation & Simulation of
Islanding Detection using Passive Methods
Marwa Ashour, Lazhar Ben-Brahim, Adel Gastli, Nasser Al-Emadi, Yara Fayyad
Qatar University, Department of Electrical Engineering
Doha, Qatar
Abstract The extensive use of Distributed Generators in
Electrical and power systems made it a must to explore its
functionality and the issues related to their connection to the
grid. One of the main issues is unintentional islanding, which has
been considered and studied for many years since it has serious
consequences on electric systems and line workers safety.
Therefore, islanding detection methods is a motivating topic to be
discussed by many scientists and engineers. Islanding detection
methods can be divided into two main categories, remote
methods and local methods; the later method is classified into
passive techniques and active techniques. This paper represents
two methods of the passive islanding techniques and a simple
comparison between both of them. The selected two methods are
the over/under voltage and over/under frequency detection
method and the wavelet based method. These two were
implemented and simulated using Matlab/Simulink toolboxes.
The simulation results proved that the two studied methods have
a good performance for parallel RLC loads having quality factor
of 2.5. The simulated passive techniques have no negative impact
on the power quality.
Keywords- Distributed generator, Islanding detection, passive
methods, over under voltage/frequency, Wavelet transform.
I. INTRODUCTION
Distributed Generation (DG) is an electric power source
placed in the distribution network in a direct manner or in the
customer side of the meter. It may be understood in simple
term as small-scale electricity generation. It can be defined also
as a generating resource, other than standalone generating
power plants. DG and load that consumes the power generated
by them are usually connected close to each other. The increase
usage of DG in distribution systems has many advantages as
they can avoid transmission and distribution (T&D) capacity
upgrades, reduce transmission and distribution line losses,
improve power quality, improve voltage profile of the system,
etc [1].
Energy exhaustion and the recent environmental issues
forced many countries to introduce DG in different distribution
systems. There are some known types of distributed generation
systems such as wind power generation, photovoltaic power
generation, fuel cell power generation, and micro-turbine
power generation. Islanding detection is a key issue when a DG
works in connection with the power grid. A passive method
which can be defined as monitoring the output parameters of
the DG such as the variation of voltage and frequency at the
PCC (point of common connection) [2]. When the mismatch
between the generated power and the size of the load is large,
978-1-4799-0724-3/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE
passive techniques seems to be sufficient in detecting an
islanding case. However, when the mismatch is very small, it is
difficult to detect the islanding state because the variations in
voltage or frequency at the PCC are also very small. The area
where the mismatch percentage is small to reach a specific
level islanding is not detectable by passive methods is called
None Detection Zone (NDZ). The NDZ limits are defined
according to particular values of voltages amplitude and
frequency which are considered as the maximum/minimum
allowable limits that voltages amplitude and frequency should
not exceed. The passive islanding detection methods are known
to be inefficient in the NDZ. That is why they were replaced
with active methods which are based on injecting small
disturbances to the network at the PCC and watching the
response of the system accordingly. Even though most of
active method has almost zero NDZ, they have the
disadvantage of being more complex and also they may affect
the delivered power quality. While the passive methods are
usually simpler and do not disturb the network.
This paper presents and discusses two passive methods
which are Over/Under voltage, over/ under frequency and
wavelet based. The paper is organized as follows: section 2
presents the two algorithms, section 3 describes the
Matlab/Simulink modeling and simulation blocks, section 4
presents and discusses the simulation results and finally
section 5 concludes the paper.
II. ALGORITHMS
Fig.1 shows the system model was used to test the
performance of the proposed islanding detection technique.
The modeled circuit is the same as the anti-islanding testing
circuit defined in UL 1741 (Standard for Inverters, Converters,
Controllers and Interconnection System Equipment for Use
with Distributed Energy Resources) and IEEE 929 [3].The
testing procedure requires that the active and reactive power
supplied from the DG match the power required by the test
load. Because the load is very close to the DG compared with
the grid, almost all the power required by the load is taken
from the DG. Therefore, when islanding takes place, the
detection is difficult.
1. OUV/OUF passive islanding technique
The first discussed passive method is the Over/under voltage
and over/ under frequency (OUV/OUF), which is one of the
most used passive anti-islanding detection technique. These
320
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

techniques basically monitor the systems voltage and

frequency in order to decide whether or not an islanding has
taken a place [4].

L Ipcc jQload
PPV + jQPV

P + jQ
Pload +
Grid
Vpv Vpcc

Figure 2: None- detection zone for UOV and UOF passive techniques

Va Vb Vc The shaded area in Fig. 2 is defined as the NDZ where

Gating
the islanding is not detectable. In fact the efficiency of
islanding detection methods are categorized according to
signals PLL
Id* the area of the non-detective zone (NDZ), defined in
power mismatch space (P versus Q) at the Point of
Va* Vd* + Ia Common Coupling (PCC). P is the real power output of
Sin-PWM dq - Id abc
the grid, Q is the reactive power output of the grid, PDG
modulation Vb* Ib and QDG are the real output power and reactive output
scheme
Vc* abc Vq*
- dq Ic power of the distributed generation respectively. Pload and
Iq
+ Qload are the real output power and reactive output power of
load respectively.
Iq*
Pload=PDG + P
OUV/OUF islanding technique
Fault Qload=QDG + Q
Voltage and
OUV/OUF frequency The behavior of the system at the time of utility
Islanding Relay measurement disconnection will depend on P and Q at the instant
before the breaker open to form island. Active power is
Islanding

Wavelet based islanding technique directly proportional to the voltage. After the disconnection
of the grid, the active power of the load is forced to be the
Compare Calculate the same with the power generated by the distributed
with the Standard One cycle
normal
Wavelet generation; hence the grid voltage changes. The change in
deviation of the Transform window
operation details
reactive power corresponds to the change in frequency and
the amplitude of the voltage. The worst case for islanding
detection is represented by a condition of balance of the
Figure 1: Circuit diagram of designed circuit
active and reactive power in which there is no change in
Thresholds for UOV and UOF can be calculated as follows: amplitude and frequency, i.e. P=0 and Q=0 [5].

( )2 1 ( )2 1 (1)
As the islanding occurred the change in active power and
)2 )

)2 ) (2) reactive power leads to changes in voltage and frequency.
. (1 ( . (1 (
Considering the proportional relationship between the active
Where Vmax, Vmin, fmax and fmin are the UOV and UOF power and voltage and the reactive power and frequency
thresholds. Typically, Vmax=110% and Vmin=88% of the respectively; a large mismatch in power results a drift in
nominal voltage. fmax= 60.5 Hz and fmin=95.3 Hz voltage and frequency to exceed the limits of the NDZ and to
detect an islanding.
2. Wavelet based passive Islanding technique
Then for Qf= 2.5:
2.1 Wavelet transform

17.36% 23.46% (3) Wavelet transform (WT) is an effective mathematical tool
which has been widely used in many engineering applications
4.22% 4.12% (4) such as speech and image processing. WT has found many
numerous applications in the power systems field some of the
These limits define the non detection zone shown in Fig1. applications are power system protection, power quality, and
partial discharge.

Unlike Fourier transform (FT) which transforms the signal

from the time domain to the frequency domain. The WT

321
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

extract the frequency components of the signal while
preserving the time domain properties [6].
Similar to FT which breaks the signal into sinusoidal
waves of different frequencies; WT breaks the signal into
shifted and dilated version of a short term waveform called
mother wavelet. Mathematically, the continuous wavelet
transform (CWT) of a signal can be represented by (5):
9]. In the this paper , db1 wavelet (with two filter coefficients)
has been used as the mother wavelet to extract the standard
deviation of the detail coefficient of voltage waveforms. db1 is
a short wavelet and therefore it can efficiently detect
transients. The signal was decomposed for 12 wavelet levels.
Table 1 gives the frequency band information of the wavelet
analysis. The sampling frequency is 100 kHz.

( ) 1 Table 1: Frequency bands of Wavelet Details

( , )= ( ). ( ) (5)

Wavelet Frequency Wavelet Frequency
level Band (Hz) level Band (Hz)
Where: a is the scale, b is the translation or position,
( )is the analyzed signal, and is the mother wavelet 1 D1 25000-50000 7 D7 390.625-781.25
described in (6). 2 D2 12500-25000 8-D8 195.3-390.625
3 D3 6250-12500 9 D9 97.65-195.3
1 4 D4 3125-6250 10-D10 48.825-97.65
, ( )= (6)
5 D5 1562.5-3125 11-D11 24.4125-48.825

The definition of CWT shows that the wavelet analysis is 6 D6 781.25-1562.5 12-D12 Dc- 24.4125
a measure of the resemblance between the wavelet and the
original signal. The calculated coefficient refers to the
correlation or similarity between the function and the wavelet The standard deviation of the details of the measured
at the current scale. If the coefficient is relatively large then voltage signal at the point of common coupling were used to
the signal is similar to the wavelet at this point in time-scale differentiate between the normal operation - the grid is
plane. In practical implementation of CWT there will be connected- and the islanded situation [10].
redundant information. Therefore, for the ease of III. MATLAB/SIMULINK MODELING
computational purposes the scale and translation variables are
discretized. The discrete wavelet transform is described in (7). The software design of the circuit implemented using
MATLAB/Simulink toolboxes as shown on Fig. 3.
( , )= ( ) ( )
, (7)

Where, , is the discretized mother wavelet given by (8):

1 0 0
, ( )= (8)
0 0

Where ao > 1 and bo > 0 are fixed real values, m is the scale
and n is the translation are positive integers.

2.2 Feature extraction

Figure 3: Simulink model of system

Transients in power systems are usually aperiodic, short

The model in Fig. 3 represents the grid to inverter
term, and nonstationary waveforms. Since Wavelet transform connection and the load is an RLC load, it is shown that the
is capable of extracting the frequency components of a signal opening the circuit breaker would form an island consisting of
without affecting the time domain properties it can be defined the inverter and the load. The load parameters are determined
as an efficient tool in islanding detection [7-8]. A transient to maintain a quality factor of 2.5. The model consists of three
signal can be fully decomposed into smoothed signals and parts; the grid and the circuit breaker side, the RLC load and
detailed signals for L wavelet levels. Islanding conditions the three phase inverter representing the DG side. The
were detected with the help of wavelet transform. Using the parameters of the system are presented in Table. 2.
properties of WT, Important features can be extracted from the
Table 2: SYSTEM PARAMETERS
decomposed waveforms [9]. A standard deviation curve at Parameter Value
different resolution levels was introduced as a feature to Grid voltage 600 V
classify the occurrence of islanding. This feature can be used Nominal frequency 60 Hz
to detect the occurrence of islanding [10]. Vdc 900 V
In fact, using a proper wavelet mother has a significant role Rload 1.6
Lload 1.69 mH
in the analysis. Daubechies wavelet family is commonly used
Cload 4.14 mF
in analyzing power system transients as investigated in [6, 7,

322
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

In the grid side a circuit breaker is attached to it and

opening of this breaker would form the islanding case. The
RLC load is connected to the grid and the DG where a circuit
breaker is added to stop feeding power to the load in the case of
islanding. The three phase inverter is controlled and
synchronized to the grid using a Phase Locked-Loop (PLL).
The input of the PLL Vabc is the sensed grid voltage which
is converted in to DC components using transformation block
build in Simulink abc-dq0 transformation and the PLL gets
locked by setting Vd* to zero. The loop filter PI is a low pass Figure 4: Output voltage at PCC in case of Under Voltage
filter. It is used to suppress high frequency component and
provide DC controlled signal to voltage controlled oscillator
(VCO) which acts as an integrator. The output of the PI
controller is the inverter output frequency that is integrated to
obtain inverter phase angle . When the difference between
grid phase angle and inverter phase angle is reduced to zero
PLL becomes active which results in synchronously rotating
voltages Vd= 0 and Vq gives magnitude of grid voltage [11].
The control unit consists of voltage and frequency
measurement blocks which compare the output values to a pre
determined standards. As a result if any measurement exceeds
the limit, a control signal is generated to open the circuit
breaker connected to the load. Figure 5: Output frequency at PCC in case of over frequency

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

In this section, three cases corresponding to OUV/OUF are
demonstrated according to the value of P and Q. It should be
noted that in simulation the islanding occurs at 0.1 s.
A. Case 1: P > Plimit and Q > Qlimit (under voltage and
over frequency)
x Figure 4 illustrate the case of under voltage where P
>Plimit. . The islanding occurs at 0.1s and the trip
signal is generated at 0.116 s to shut down the inverter
at 0.15s.
x Figure 5illustrate the case of over frequency where Q
>Qlimit. . The islanding occurs at 0.1s and the trip
signal is generated at 0.148s.
Figure 6: Output frequency at PCC in case of under frequency
B. Case 2: P > Plimit and Q > Qlimit (over voltage and
under frequency)
x Figure 6 illustrate the case of over voltage where. . P
> Plimit. The islanding occurs at 0.1s and the trip
signal is generated at 0.13 s to shut down the inverter
at 0.15s.
x Figure 7 illustrate the case of under frequency where
Q > Qlimit. . The islanding occurs at 0.1s and the trip
signal is generated at 0.148s.

Figure 7: Output voltage at PCC in case of Over Voltage

323
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar

C. Case 3: P Plimit and Q Qlimit

In this case islanding occurs at 0.1 s; however this case is
included in the None-detective zone and there is no change in
the amplitude of neither the voltage nor the frequency.

Figure 11: Islanding situation voltage signal

Fig. 10 and fig.11 shows an example of the acquired

voltage system for both non-islanding normal operation- and
islanding condition. The islanding occurs at t=0.01 sec. Fig. 12
Figure 8: Output voltage at PCC in case of non-detection zone and fig. 13 gives an example of the first two details (D1 and
D2) for both non-islanding and islanding situations. It is
illustrated from both fig.12 and fig. 13 that some differences
can be noticed between the two events when analyzing the
voltage waveforms using DWT.

Figure 9: Output frequency at PCC in case of non-detection zone

Regarding the wavelet based technique; one power cycle

of the voltage signal was measured from the PCC. Then WT
was carried on and the standard deviation of the details was
calculated and compared to the non-islanding situation.
Figure 12: Detail 1 for both non-islanding and islanding situation

Figure 10: Non-islanding situation voltage signal

Figure 13: Detail 2 for both non-islanding and islanding situation

324
 2013 IEEE GCC Conference and exhibition, November 17-20, Doha, Qatar
The Standard deviations of the 12 details are then
calculated. Fig. 14 shows the standard deviation curve for both
non-islanding (normal) and islanding operation.
Fig. 15 shows the standard deviation curve for three
different cases: non-islanding, islanding, and an islanding
event in case of power mismatch. It is shown in the graph that
the standard deviation curve differs in the cases of power
mismatch and power match.
Figure 14: Standard deviation curve for both non-islanding
and islanding operation
Figure 15: Standard deviation curve for non-islanding, operation when
power match, and islanding operation when power mismatch
325
V. CONCLUSION
This paper discussed two passive islanding techniques;
OUV/OUF and the wavelet based islanding detection, these
techniques have shown no effect on power quality. Though,
OUV/OUF is easy and simple to implement it has the
disadvantage of having large NDZ. In contrast, the wavelet
based technique showed potential in detecting islanding even
if the power mismatch is smaller.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Acharya, P. Mahat, and N.Mithulananthan, An analytical
approach for DG allocation in primary distribution network,
International journal of Electrical power & Energy systems, Volume
28, Issue 10, December 2006, Pages 669678.
[2] Byung-Yeol Bae, Jong-Kyou Jeong Islanding Detection Method for
Inverter-based Distributed Generation Systems using a Signal Cross-
correlation Scheme, Journal of Power Electronics, Vol. 10, No. 6,
November 2010.
[3] W. Xu, K. Mauch, S. Martel An assessment of distributed generation
islanding detection methods and issues for Canada CANMET energy
technology center, 2004.
[4] H. Zeineldin, E. El-Saadany, M. Salama, Impact of DG Interface
Control on Islanding Detection and Nondetective Zones, IEEE Trans.
on Power Del., Vol. 21, Issue 3, July 2006, pp.1515 - 1523.
[5] R. Teodorescu , M. Liserre and P. Rodriguez Grid Converters for
Photovoltaic and Wind Power Systems, 2011 :IEEE-Wiley
[6] R. Kunte A wavelet transform-based islanding detection algorithm
for inverter assisted distributed generators Ms.c. thesis, Tennessee
Technological University, 2009.
[7] N. W. A. Lidula, N. Perera, Investigation of a Fast Islanding
Detection Methodology Using Transient Signals power and energy
society general meeting, 2009.
[8] W. Xu, K. Mauch, S. Martel An assessment of distributed generation
islanding detection methods and issues for Canada CANMET energy
technology center, 2004.
[9] I. Daubechies, Ten Lectures onWavelets. Montpelier, VT: Capital
City Press, 1992
[10] A.M. Gaoudam M. Salama, M. Sultan, A. Chikhani, Power Quality
Detection and Classification Using Wavelet-Multiresolution Signal
Decomposition IEEE Trans. on Power Del., Vol. 14, No. 4, October
1999, pp.1469 - 1476.
[11] Nandurkar, Miss Sangita R., and Mrs Mini Rajeev. "Design and
Simulation of three phase Inverter for grid connected Photovoltic
systems."