Grid Connected Inverter for Current Control by Using Anti-Islanding Technique

International Journal of Power Electronics and Drive System (IJPEDS)
Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2018, pp. 926~932
ISSN: 2088-8694, DOI: 10.11591/ijpeds.v9.i2.pp926-932  926
Journal homepage: http://iaescore.com/journals/index.php/IJPEDS
Grid Connected Inverter for Current Control by Using Anti-
Islanding Technique
B V Rajanna1
, Dr K S Srikanth2
1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, K L E F, Vaddeswaram, Guntur, A.P., India
2
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, K L E F, Vaddeswaram, Guntur, A.P., India
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received Dec 21, 2017
Revised Jan 22, 2018
Accepted Feb 7, 2018
The inverter with critical loads should be able to provide critical loads with a
stable and seamless voltage during control mode change as well as clearing
time. The indirect current control has been proposed for providing stable
voltage with critical load during clearing time and seamless control mode
transfer of inverters. However, the islanding detection is difficult since with
the indirect current control the magnitude and frequency of voltage do not
change when the islanding occurs. The conventional anti-islanding method
based on the magnitude and frequency of voltage variation cannot apply to
the indirect current control. This paper proposes an islanding detection
method for the indirect current control. The proposed islanding detection
method can detect the islanding using reactive power perturbation and
observation when the frequency and magnitude of voltage don’t vary during
clearing time. In order to verify the proposed anti-islanding method, the
experimental results of a 600W three-phase inverter are provided.
Keyword:
Islanding, inverter
Reactive power
Critical load
Micro-grid
Indirect current control
Copyright © 2018 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.
All rights reserved.
Corresponding Author:
B V Rajanna
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation( K L E F),
Green fields, Vaddeswaram, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Email: rajannabv2012@gmail.com
1. INTRODUCTION
The micro-grid is considered as a possible solution to the reliability limitation of the traditional
power system [1].The micro-gird consists of energy storage systems (ESS) and distributed generation (DG)
systems such as photovoltaic (PV), wind power and a cluster of critical load. Figure 1 shows the circuit
diagram of the grid-connected inverter for ESS with a critical load. When an islanding occurs the inverter for
ESS should detect the islanding within 2 seconds and disconnect the inverter from the grid according to IEEE
1547 and 929 standards [2-5]. During the clearing time the magnitude and frequency of voltage across the
critical load may vary as shown in Figure 2, since the voltage is determined by the amount of the injected
power and load condition. Further, a large transient may occur on the critical load at actual turn off of the
switch since the inverter based on the conventional control method changes from current control to voltage
control modes. Regarding this concern, an indirect current control was proposed in [6-10] for seamless
transfer during the clearing time as well as at turn-off of the switch. However, since the indirect current
control does not make the magnitude and frequency of voltage across the load vary when an islanding occurs,
the conventional anti-islanding method such as the reactive power variation (RPV), the magnitude and
frequency positive feedback and the active frequency drift (AFD) based on the magnitude and frequency of
voltage variation cannot be applied to the indirect current control [11-15]. The harmonic injection anti-
islanding method can detect the islanding, but it may cause a severe distortion in current and voltage of the
critical load [16-20].

Int J Pow Elec & Dri Syst ISSN: 2088-8694 
Grid Connected Inverter for Current Control by Using Anti-Islanding Technique (B V Rajanna)
927
Figure 1. Grid connected inverter with critical load Figure 2. Simulation of mode transfer with
Conventional control
In this paper, an islanding detection method for the indirect current control is proposed. The
proposed islanding detection method can detect the islanding using reactive power perturbation and
observation in the inverter being operated based on indirect current control, which does not cause a change in
magnitude and frequency of critical load voltage. The inverter detects reactive power mismatch between
inverter reactive power Q and reactive power reference Q*, leading to detection of islanding condition.
Therefore in the inverter based on indirect current control the proposed antiislanding method can detect
islanding. Finally the experimental result from a 600W three-phase inverter verifies that the proposed anti-
islanding method can detect the islanding without NDZ.
2. PROPOSED ANTI-ISLANDING
2.1. Conventional RPV anti-islanding method
According to IEEE 1547 and 929 standards, an islanding test scheme for verification of the anti-
islanding method is shown in Figure 3. The islanding test scheme consists of a grid connected inverter, a
RLC load, a switch, a recloser and the grid. Quality factor of the RLC load is 2.5, and resonant frequency fres
is set to be the same as grid frequency. Then, values of the RLC load is determined by (1) and (2).
(1)
(2)
Active and reactive powers of the RLC loads can be expressed, respectively, as follows:
(3)
(4)
where and f represent voltage and frequency of PCC, respectively. By combining (1), (2), (3) and (4),
can be rewritten as
(5)
Equation (5) shows that the load reactive power is zero when frequency equal to the resonance frequency. In
Fig. 3(a) showing the grid-connected mode, the load reactive power is the sum of inverter reactive
power Q and grid reactive power :
(6)

 ISSN: 2088-8694
Int J Pow Elec & Dri Syst, Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2018 : 926 – 932
928
(a) (b)
Figure 3. Islanding test scheme (a) Grid connected mode, (b) Islanding mode
Figure 4. Conventional RPV anti-islanding method Figure 5. Reactive Power P&O anti-islanding
method
When the grid is connected the load reactive power is zero, and the inverter supplies reactive power
to the grid. In the conventional Reactive Power Variation (RPV) method the inverter changes reactive power
periodically, as shown in Figure 4. Then, when the islanding occurs the RPV method forces the frequency of
to exceed the frequency thresholds, leading to detection of islanding condition. In Figure 3(b) showing
the islanding mode, the inverter reactive power is equal to the load reactive power:
(7)
Because the load reactive power is determined by frequency of , the inverter changes frequency of
for reactive power output. Therefore, the frequency of exceeds the frequency thresholds and the
islanding is detected.
2.2. Proposed Reactive Power P&O Anti-islanding method
The conventional RPV method detects variation in the frequency of VPCC. However, with the indirect current
control the frequency of VPCC does not change when the islanding occurs. Therefore, the conventional RPV
method cannot be applied to the indirect current control. The proposed antiislanding method use reactive
power variation, but an islanding detection indicator is not frequency but reactive power. In Fig. 5, the
proposed islanding method detects reactive power mismatch between inverter reactive power Q and reactive
power reference Q*. If the frequency of VPCC is limited by allowable maximum frequency and
maximum frequency according to IEEE 1547 and 929 standards, the inverter reactive power Q is also
limited when the islanding occurs. When the islanding occurs, the inverter reactive power range is defined as
(8)
If reactive power reference Q* exceeds reactive power range of equation (8), the inverter cannot generate the
reactive power reference when the islanding occurs, resulting in the islanding detection. Therefore, the
proposed anti-islanding method based on the reactive power can be applied to the indirect current control.

929
Figure 6. Proposed control algorithm Figure 7. Key waveform of the proposed P&O anti-
islanding method
Figure 6 illustrates the control block diagram of the proposed anti-islanding method for the indirect
current control. The proposed anti-islanding method consists of a reactive power perturbation for changing
reactive power reference periodically and a reactive power observation for measuring reactive power Q.
The islanding detector detects the mismatch between inverter reactive power Q and reactive power reference
.The indirect current control consists of an outer current control loop for regulating current and an inner
voltage control loop for controlling capacitor voltage. Both current control and voltage control loops are used
for the grid connected mode, and a single voltage loop is used for the standalone mode. Current command iLg
dq* can be obtained by power calculation, respectively:
(9)
(10)
Capacitor voltage reference can be obtained by adding nominal value to output
of the current controller. The outputs of the current controller and PLL are restricted by the limiters.
Figure 7 shows key waveforms of the reactive power P&O anti-islanding method based on the indirect
current control. In the grid connected mode inverter reactive power Q is regulated to follow the reactive
power reference Q*, and load reactive power QLoad is zero. When the islanding occurs, the magnitude and
frequency of the capacitor voltage do not change limiters, and inverter reactive power Q isn’t regulated,
resulting in the islanding detection. It is seen that the transient voltage across the load is negligible at actual
turn-off of the switch since the voltage control is well maintained.
(a) (b)
Figure 8. Simulation results of the proposed islanding detection method under resistive load condition. When
the grid is connected, (a) P=1kW, = 500W, = -500W (b) P=250W, =500W, = 250W

 ISSN: 2088-8694
930
3. SIMULATION RESULT
In order to validate the proposed anti-islanding method, simulations have been done under the
condition of resistive load, reactive load and RLC load with the quality factor of 2.5, respectively. The
system specification used in the simulation is as follows: Po = 500W, VDC = 225V, Vgrid = 64V, Li = 1.68mH,
Lg =3mH and Cf = 3_F. Figure 8(a) and (b) show the islanding detection results under the resistive load
condition. When the grid is connected the inverter reactive power Q changes periodically, and the load
reactive power Qload is zero. When the islanding occurs, the inverter reactive power Q becomes zero since the
inverter reactive power Q is equal to the load reactive power Qload, and then the islanding is detected due to
reactive power mismatch between the inverter reactive power Q and the reactive power reference Q*. Figure
9 and 10 show the islanding detection results under the reactive load condition. When the islanding occurs,
the inverter exceeds thresholds output frequency f to regulate the inverter reactive power Q, but cannot
regulate reactive power Q since f is limited by frequency limiter, resulting in the islanding detection.
(a) (b)
Figure 9. Simulation results of the proposed islanding detection method under reactive load condition. When
the grid is connected, (a) P = 500W, = 0kW, = -30var (b) ) P = = 500W, = 0kW,
= 30var
Figure 10. Simulation results of the proposed islanding detection method under RLC load(quality factor=2.5)
condition

931
(a) (b)
Figure 11. Experimental results of the proposed islanding detection method showing the mode transfer from
stand-alone mode to grid-connected mode when islanding occurs. When the grid is connected, (a) P= ,
= 0W, = 0W (b) P= P= +300W, = -300W, = 0W
4. EXPERIMENT RESULT
A 600W three-phase inverter is built and tested to verify the proposed anti-islanding method, and
the experimental results are provided. The system specification used in the experiment is as follows: Po =
600W, VDC = 225V, Vgrid = 64V, Li = 1.68mH, Lg = 3mH and Cf = 3_F, RLC Load (quality factor = 2.5), Figs.
11(a) and (b) show the islanding detection within 2 seconds and the seamless mode transfer from
gridconnected mode to stand-alone mode when the islanding occurs.
5. CONCLUSION
The conventional anti-islanding method cannot be applied to the indirect current control since the
magnitude and frequency of voltage do not change even after the islanding occurs. An issue of detecting the
islanding arose for the indirect current control method. In this paper, a new islanding detection method that
can be applied to the indirect current control is proposed. The proposed islanding detection method can detect
the islanding using reactive power perturbation and observation in the inverter being operated based on
indirect current control, which does not cause a change in magnitude and frequency of critical load voltage
not only during clearing time but at the moment of mode change. In order to verify the proposed islanding
detection method, the experimental results of a 600W three-phase inverter with RLC load (qfactor= 2.5) are
provided. The experimental results show that the proposed islanding detection method is effective in detect
islanding within 2 seconds according to IEEE 1547 and 929 standards, while providing stable and seamless
voltage for critical load.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I express my thanks to the support given by management in completing my project. I also express
my sincere gratitude & deep sense of respect to Dr. K S Srikanth for making us available all the required
assistance & for his support & inspiration to carry out this project in the Institute. I would like to thank Dr. K
S Srikanth, professor who has been an inspiring guide and committed faculty who gave relief moral support
in every situation of engineering career. The encouragement and support by him, especially in carrying out
this project motivated me to complete this project. I am thankful to the teaching and non-teaching staff of
EEE department for their direct as well as indirect help in my project. I am elated to avail my selves to this
opportunity to express my deep sense of gratitude to my parents.
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