A reliable islanding identification mechanism for DC microgrid using PCC transient signal

Abstract

Abstract The islanding detection is a major problem for both AC and DC Microgrids. Failure to do so may result in problems such as system instability, increased non-detection zone, out-of-phase reclosing, personnel safety, and power quality deterioration. To address this issue, this paper presents a reliable island identification method for DC Microgrids that employs a Cumulative Sum of Rate of change of Voltage (CSROCOV) to reduce the non-recognition region. The proposed islanding protection scheme employs point of common coupling (PCC) transient signal to detect islands events. The voltage, power, and current sampling are accumulated from the PCC of the distributed generation terminals. The proposed scheme detects islanding in three test cases with varying power mismatching conditions, while non-islanding events are classified as capacitor switching and faults. The system is modelled and simulated in the MATLAB/Simulink environment, then islanding conditions are applied by turning off the main circuit breaker. Simulation results are presented to verify the methodology under different test cases. The robustness of the proposed scheme is also validated against measurement noise.