Islanding Detection Method for a Hybrid Renewable Energy System

The Hydrogen Research Institute (HRI) developed a hybrid renewable energy power system that uses a wind turbine, a photovoltaic array and a fuel cell. In order to fulfill utility requirements , an islanding protection device is being developed. This paper presents the passive (Under/Over Voltage, Under/Over Frequency) and active (Sandia Frequency Shift and Sandia Voltage Shift) protection methods that were chosen to be added to the system. Those four methods were combined in an innovative way in order to benefit from the strengths of each of them. This way, the islanding protection will be more efficient and the non detection zone will be reduced. This paper also presents a Matlab/Simulink model of the protection device and the simulation results that were obtained using different critical operating conditions for which the clearing times can surpass those defined by the Canadian standard C22.2 No 107.1-01. This standard is similar to the IEEE 1547 standard with a few differences. Finally, the paper presents the experimental results for a grid-connected inverter, designed by the HRI, which uses the islanding protection method presented above.

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