2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

New Method for Islanding Detection of Wind

Turbines
H. Kazemi Kargar* and J. Mirzaei**
*Shahid Beheshti University/Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering/ Department of Electrical Engineering,
Tehran, Iran, Email: H_kazemi@sbu.ac.ir
**Zanjan University/Faculty of Engineering/Department of Electrical Engineering, Zanjan, Iran, Email:
jaber.mirzaei@gmail.com

AbstractIn this paper, a new method for islanding

detection of windfarms, based on ROCOF relay is
developed. The method is suitable for islanding detection of
induction generators used in windfarms. The new method
uses the derivation of frequency and its changing in time
domain. After islanding is detected, the capacitor bank
connected to the wind turbine bus reduces. As a result the
voltage at bus drops immediately and under voltage relays
issue a trip for disconnecting the windfarm from the bus.
The new method is approved by a simulation results of a
windfarm located in Iran.
KeywordsIslanding Detection, ROCOF Relay, Windfarm,
Windturbine

I. INTRODUCTION
Today's environmental forces are generating a new
market for renewable energy resources. It is predicted that
by 2010, nearly 10% of the electric energy in Europe will
be supplied by this type of sources as wind turbines attract
more attention than the other resources [1]. Connecting
wind turbines to the distribution network produce some
problems like islanding.
Islanding occurs when a wind turbine becomes
electrically isolated from the grid, but continues to
produce electric energy and supply local loads. According
to the IEEE standard, all embedded generators must be
disconnected automatically and remain disconnected until
the normal grid supply is restored [2].
Typically, voltage relays are used to detect islanding of
wind turbines use induction generator. Induction
generators are essentially induction motors that are driven
at speed above their nominal synchronous speed and
require currents for producing magnetic field. Once the
grid is disconnected, the excitation field reduces rapidly
and terminal voltages collapse. In this case, an under
voltage relay simply detects the islanding. However, there
are some situations in which excitation field remains
almost constant and therefore the wind turbine continues
to operate. In this case, the Rate Of Change of Frequency
(ROCOF) relays have been utilized [3]. Typical ROCOF
relays installed in 50Hz systems are set between 0.1Hz/s
and 1.0Hz/s [4, 5]. However, there is a little work on
modeling this case.
The objective of this paper is to present a new method
for islanding detection of wind turbines equipped with

1-4244-2405-4/08/$20.00 2008 IEEE

induction generators. The proposed method is a

combination of passive and active method for detecting
islanding. When the rate change of frequency gets bigger
than a threshold then the anti-islanding algorithm starts,
at this situation the capacity of parallel capacitors
connected to the generator is decreased and consequently
the bus voltage drops and wind turbine is disconnected by
the undervoltage relay operation. As can be seen, the
proposed algorithm is composed of a passive and an
active method. The ROCOF detects islanding by the
passive method and the wind turbine is disconnected by
the active method.
The paper is equipped with the simulation of a practical
windfarm in Iran, and the obtained results show that the
proposed method can detect islanding properly.
This paper is organized as follows. The principle of
Islanding and islanding detection schemes is presented in
section II. Section III describes the proposed method
employed to detect this situation. The case study is
presented in section IV and finally conclusion is appeared
in section V.
II. ISLANDING DETECTION SCHEMES
According to IEEE std. 1547, islanding occurs when a
portion of the distribution system becomes electrically
isolated from the remainder of the power system, yet
continues to be energized by distributed generators
connected to the isolated subsystem. Various technical
guides recommend that immediately after loss of grid
(LOG), all of the distributed generators must be
automatically disconnected and remain disconnected until
the normal grid supply is restored. Typically, the islanding
situation should be detected within 2 sec [2].
An islanding situation should be detected soon after the
islanding is formed. The scheme should work for any
possible formations of islands. Note that there could be
multiple switchers, reclosers and fuses between a
distributed generator and the supply substation. Opening
of any one of the devices will form an island. Since each
island formation can have different mixture of loads and
distributed generators, the behavior of each island can be
quite different. A reliable anti-islanding scheme must
work for all possible islanding scenarios [6, 7].

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2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

The scheme should detect islanding conditions within

the required time frame. The main constraint here is to
prevent out-of-phase reclosing of the distributed
generators. A recloser is typically programmed to
reenergize its downstream system after about 0.5 to 1
second delay. Ideally, the anti islanding scheme must trip
DG before the reclosing takes place. Islanding detection
techniques can be broadly classified into two types
according to their working principles. The first type
consists of communication- based schemes and the second
type consists of local detection schemes.
The
communication-based
schemes
use
telecommunication means to alert and trip DGs
when islands are formed. Their performance is
independent of the type of DGs involved. Two
basic schemes implemented or proposed for
anti-islanding applications are Transfer Trip and
Power Line Signaling.
The second type is local detection schemes that
rely on the voltage and current signals available
at the DG site. An islanding condition is
detected if indices derived from the signals
exceed certain thresholds. A representative
example is the frequency relay. The local
detection schemes can be further divided into
two sub-types. One is the passive detection
method, which makes decisions based on
measured voltage and current signals only.
Another type is the active detection method.
Such methods inject disturbances into the supply
system and detect islanding conditions based on
system responses measured locally. Although
some of the local detection schemes can be
applied to both types of DGs, their performances
can differ as they are dependent on the operating
characteristics of the DGs involved. Table 1
presents classification of anti-islanding schemes.

The serious problem of these methods is that these

schemes don't useful for Induction generator and with
attention to fast improvement of power production from
these sources one method should be developed.

III. PROPOSED METHOD

In Proposed method at first the rate of change of
frequency is calculated from measured terminal voltages,
and if it exceeds the threshold value (0.2 Hz/sec), parallel
capacitor of induction generator is reduced by various
steps. Decreasing voltage is as results of decreasing
magnetizing flux, by going the voltage magnitude below a
threshold, the main switch disconnects the wind turbine
from the grid. Fig. 1 presents the algorithm of this
procedure.

TABLE I
CLASSIFICATION OF ANTI-ISLANDING SCHEMES
Anti-Islanding Schemes
Local-Based
CommunicationBased
Active
Passive
Magnitude
Synchronous
Inverter
Transfer Trip
change of
Generator
based
frequency
Rate of
Power Line
Impedance
Impedance
change of
Signaling
Measurement Measurement
frequency
Frequency
Voltage
Phase shift of
phase or
Variation
frequency
voltage shift
Voltage
Power
Harmonics

Figure 1. Flow chart of proposed Islanding detection scheme

Thus algorithm organized as follows:

Frequency of bus voltage is measured.
Rate of Change of Frequency is calculated.
If ROCOF is more than 0.2 Hz/sec four steps
(each step .0225MVAR) of excitation
capacitor bank is removed.
If voltage drops more than a predefine value,
the wind turbine is disconnected.

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2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

Figure 2. simulation of main grid and interconnected Wind farm

Figure 3. Simulation of Wind Turbine/Generator with PSCAD/EMTDC

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2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

IV. CASE STUDY

In this paper, the case study is a windfarm located in
MANJIL in Iran. The specification of the windfarm is
indicated briefly in Table II and simulated by PSCADEMTDC software. The simulated grid is presented in Fig.
3 and Fig. 4.
TABLE II.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION OF MANJIL WIND FARM
Main Grid
63 kV connected with 63/20 kV Transformer
Induction Generator
660 V 0.66 MVA
Turbine Type
Mode 2 (Three blade)
Self Excitation
1.05 MVAR
Capacitor
Static Load
0.707 MVA (PF=0.707)
Frequency
50 Hz
Capacitor (for
0.5 MVAR
switching test)
Induction Motor
(for Motor starting
0.5 MW
test)
Wind Generator
0.69/20 kV 0.8 MVA
Transformer

The rate of change of frequency indicates that at time of islanding a

fast jump occures. This means that islanding may be occurred. After

the islanding is detected, then the shunt capacitor is

reduced until the voltage relays issue a trip and
disconnects the windfarm from the bus.
Fig. 6 shows that how the capacitor bank reduction
effects on bus voltage. As be seen more reduction of
capacitor bank causes more voltage drop. As be shown in
the figure removes 4 steps (equal to 1 MVAR) reduces
voltage significantly.

Figure 6. Voltage profile variation in effect to capacitor bank

reduction by steps of 0.0225MVA

Results of this simulation are presented in Fig. 4 to Fig.

6.

There are some situations that may produce mistakes in

islanding detection procedure. The worst case is motor
starting.
Fig. 7 shows that when a motor starts, a lot of reactive
power is drawn from the grid and the frequency of the
network will slightly changed as shown in Fig. 8. The
frequency variation is due to the active power of the motor
at starting time. In this case, the ROCOF relay does not
detect islanding because the magnitude of df/dt is lower
than the threshold.
Advanced Graph Frame

Figure 4. Frequency variations of bus voltage

active power of bus

Fig. 4 indicates that islanding happened at time 4 sec.

with a little change in frequency which frequency relays
can not detect the islanding. Also, the voltage variation is
within the limit and therefore voltage relays can not issue
the trip. In this case, as shown in Fig. 5, the ROCOF relay
can detect the case, because the rate of change of
frequency is more than 2 Hz/sec.

active and reactive power of bus

3.50

reactive power of bus

3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

14.0

.
.
.

Figure 7. Active and reactive power variations at motor starting

ROCOF
0.0100

df/dt

0.0075
0.0050

df/dt

0.0025
0.0000
-0.0025
-0.0050
-0.0075
-0.0100
-0.0125
4.0

Figure 5. Rate of Change of Frequency of Bus Voltage

6.0

8.0

10.0

12.0

Figure 8. df/dt variations at motor starting

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14.0

.
.
.

2nd IEEE International Conference on Power and Energy (PECon 08), December 1-3, 2008, Johor Baharu, Malaysia

V.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, a new method for islanding detection of

windfarms is proposed. The method is suitable for
windfarms using wind turbines with asynchronous
generators. The proposed method is composed of two
passive and active method. by passive method the
islanding is detected and by the active method the
windfarm is disconnected from the bus. To illustrate the
new method a sample windfarm located in MANJIL site
in Iran is simulated.
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[1]

[2]
[3]

[4]

[5]
[6]

[7]

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