ArticleCode : psd_3273

Capability Improvement of Over / Under Frequency Relays by Using a Hybrid

Islanding Detection Method for Synchronous Based DG Units
*

M. Bakhshi, *R. Noroozian, **Gevorg B. Gharehpetian

*
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, P.O.Box 45195-313, Zanjan, Iran.
**
Department of Electrical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstractthe aim of this paper is increasing

performance of over / under frequency relays using of
both active and passive method to prevent islanding
operation. The proposed active method is based on
applying high value impedance load which can
improve performance of ROCOF relays (passive
method) in small power mismatches. In fact, proposed
method is a supplement for over / under frequency
protection (OFP/UFP). In addition, the performance
of proposed method is evaluated under various
disturbances. Results demonstrate that proposed
method can be discriminated between islanding and
non islanding situations.
Index TermsIslanding detection; ROCOF relays;
Active methods; Active power imbalance; non
detection zone

I.

INTRODUCTION

istributed generation (DG) is the electricity

generation at the distribution networks. Nowadays
distributed generation has been broadly used in the
distribution power systems due to security of electricity
supply to customers, deregulation of the electricity
market, increased power reliability and decreased
environmental concerns [1, 2].
Capability of islanding identification for the connection of
distributed generators to the distribution networks is an
important issue. According to IEEE standard 1547-2003,
islanding situation is defined as a condition in which a
portion of an electric power system is solely energized
and separated from the rest of the electric power system
[3].Failure to islanding detection can lead to several
negative impacts to the generators and connected loads.
Disadvantage of islanding situation are [4]:

1.
2.

Equipment damaging due to grid cannot control

frequency and voltage.
Safety hazards to utility workers and customers.

Therefore islanding situation must be detection as soon as

possible. Until now many islanding detection methods
have been proposed. These methods can be classified into
two main categories. Remote techniques such as power
line communication [5] and supervisory control and data
acquisition [6] has any non detection zone (NDZ) and
more reliable than local techniques but more expensive.
NDZs are defined as a loading condition for which an
islanding detection method would fail to operate in a
timely manner [2].
Local techniques can be classified into two groups, active
methods and passive methods. According to active
methods islanding situation is detected base on adding a
perturbation signal to the DG. Passive methods are based
on measuring local parameters of DG and comparing it
with preset value. Although the active methods have
smaller NDZ than passive methods but degrade the power
quality of system [7]. A more information on active and
passive methods could be found in [1].
In this paper, we aim to develop performance of over /
under frequency relays using of improving ROCOF relay.
ROCOF relay has a large NDZ but using of an active
method, degrade this negative impact. This article for
decreasing the NDZ of over / under frequency relays uses
from it in out of acceptable constraints and for any
variation of frequency inside the acceptable constraints is
used proposed algorithm.
The rest of the paper is organized as follow. Principles of
the ROCOF relay are described in section II. In section
III, case study of power system is introduced. Section IV
expresses proposed method and in sections V and VI
results of simulations and conclusions are represented
respectively.

II.

PRINCIPLES OF THE ROCOF RELAY

An equivalent circuit of a synchronous distributed

generator equipped with a ROCOF relay operating in
parallel with a utility main network is showed in figure 1.

CB

Utility
network

frequency and rotor angle deviations are determined as

follows:

 
f 

SDG

2 1 

e 
nt sin(d t )

(6)

(7)

Fig.1. Equivalent circuit of synchronous distributed generator operating

in parallel with main network

In this example the synchronous distributed generator

(SDG) and utility network feed the local load. In this
situation the following equation is defined.


  Pm  PL  D

(1)

This equation in dynamic power system is known as

swing equation. Where H, b, D, Pe and PL are generator
inertia constant, synchronous speed of DG, damping
coefficient, mechanical power of DG and load electrical
power respectively.
The power system frequency is kept constant. If the
circuit breaker (CB) opens during a fault, the generator
and the load that composes the system become islanded.
In this situation transients are caused by an electrical
power imbalance in the islanded system and the system
frequency starts to vary dynamically. The islanding
condition can be detected by observing such system
behavior in the form of the rate change of frequency. For
understanding islanding and non islanding situations,
swing equation must be solved. We did it in two different
cases: parallel operations with main network and loss of
main network.
A. Dispersed generating unit is operated in parallel
with the utility network

d
dt
Pe  Pmax sin( )



(2)
(3)

By substituting (2) and (3) into (1) can be acquired.

2 H d 2
d
D
 Pm  Pmax sin( )
2
b dt
dt

(4)

If the rotor angle () has a small variation, the following

equation can be achieved.

2 H d 2 
d
D
 Pmax cos( 0 )  0
2
b dt
dt

Pmax cos( 0 ).b

2H

(8)

D
b
2 2 H .Pmax cos( 0 )

(9)

n 

b

e 
nt sin(d t  )

1

 n  0
2

Where

Local
load

2H

 0

(5)

By substituting 0+ instead of and simplification it,

finally equation (5) can be obtained. By solving the (5),

d  n 1 
2

(10)

 cos 1 (
)

(11)

Equation (7) represents that the frequency variation in

parallel operations with utility network is sinusoidal form
and after a while it can be damped.
B. Loss of main grid
In this case, the response of frequency to a loss of grid is
determined. In the islanding situation, transferring power
between DG and main network reaches to zero. It means
that the synchronizing coefficient (Pmaxcos0) must be
equal to zero. In fact, the synchronizing coefficient is the
slope of power transferring between DG and network
versus rotor angle that in islanding situation this slope is
decreased to zero. So by equality of synchronizing
coefficient with zero in Eq (5) the following relation can
be achieved:

2 H d 2 
d
D
0
2
b dt
dt

(12)

By solving the (12), frequency deviation is determined as

follows:

f 

P
1  e 2
nt
D

(13)

By comparing (7) and (13), it can be seen that the

response of the DGs frequency is perfectly different in
two cases. When the real power mismatches (P) causes
transients in the islanded system, the frequency of DG
increases or decreases, this situation created frequency of
the DG deviate from its nominal value and causes the
ROCOF relay sending trip command.

III.

CASE STUDY SYSTEM

The complete data of test system employed in this paper

(Fig. 2) is given at the appendix section. The test system
is comprised of a 132-kV, 60-Hz, sub transmission
system with a short-circuit level of 1500 MVA,
represented by a Thvenin equivalent (Sub), which feeds
a 33-kV distribution system through a 132/33-kV, /Yg,
transformer. In this system, there is one 30-MVA
synchronous generator (SG) connected to bus 5, which is

SDG + AVR +
GOV

132/33 KV

33/0.69 KV

Sub
132 KV 1
1500 MW

/Yg

20 MW
7 MVAr

/Yg

10 MW
4 MVAr

Fig.2. Single line diagram of the test system

connected to the network through one 33/0.69 kV, /Yg,

transformer. The lines are modeled as RLC series
impedance and the transformers are modeled using the T
circuit [8]. The synchronous generator was represented by
a sixth-order three-phase model in the d-q rotor reference
frame and it is equipped with an AVR represented by the
IEEEType 1 model and hydraulic turbine and governor
[9].

IV.

for ROCOF relay is 1.5 Hz/s [9]. This article uses this
value.
Start
Set timer to zero & k = 0
Read the branch
voltage

PROPOSED METHOD

No

The aim of this section is increasing performance of

ROCOF relay with using of an active method for
degrading non detection zone of over / under frequency
relays. The proposed active method is based on applying
high value impedance load which can improves
performance of ROCOF relay in small power mismatch.
The procedure of this method is carried out by sensing

Yes
Calculate f and df/dt
No
If df/dt 0

any non zero variation at f t index. Periodic

switching of high value impedance load is started with
same variation in f t . The time of switching is 100
ms. How long it takes more time, reliability of the method
is increased, on the contrary power quality of the system
is decreased. So regarding above indices, switching time
of high impedance load was selected 100 ms. In this
research, reducing of non detection zone in small power
mismatch is the aim of using active method. Flowchart of
the proposed method is shown in figure 3.
According to IEEE standard 1547, maximum delay of 2
second should be considered for detection and
identification of an island. So in this study, detection time
has been limited to 200 ms. The IEEE 1547 and UL 1741
denote acceptable constraints for voltage and frequency
deviations. In case of voltage, variations must be
remained between 0.88 p.u. 1.1 p.u. and in case of
frequency; variations must be remained between 59.3 Hz
60.5 Hz.
Although the ROCOF relay in large power imbalance
(more than 20 %) has a good performance but if power
imbalance between main network and distributed
generation was small, probably ROCOF relay sends
wrong trip command encountering other disturbances
such as fault, load variations, capacitor switching and etc.
For solving this problem, this paper uses over/under
frequency protection in out of acceptable constraints and
for any variation inside the acceptable constraints is used
proposed method that is shown in figure 4. According to
this algorithm when any variation in rate of change of
frequency was sensed and exceeded from preset value a
counter incremented by one. If the counter value was
longer than a threshold (threshold is setting in k = 8),
islanding situation is detected. The typical threshold value

Zero voltage
crossing ?

Start
periodic
switching

Yes

Timer step up

If timer 0.2 s

Yes

End
process

No
No

If |df/dt| 1.5
Yes
k=k+1

No
If k 8
Yes
Island detection
Fig.3. Flowchart of proposed algorithm

V.

SIMULATIONS AND RESULT

For testing and validating of proposed method, case study

of power system is simulated in Matlab/Simulink
software. The main properties of proposed method are
differentiation between island situation and other
disturbance such as three, two and single phase to ground
fault, load shedding, load adding and capacitor bank
switching.
With regard to figures 5 and 6, all applied disturbances
have the largest acceptable oscillations. In figures (5-7),
Power system in various perturbations such as different

type of fault, load variations and capacitor switching is

comparing with islanding situation and represented that
proposed method simply can discriminates between them.
With applying this method nondetection zone of over /

under frequency relays was decreased. From the results,

we can conclude that smallest non detection zone (NDZ)
is P = [0.06, 0.03]. These values are expressed in per
unit system, where 1 p.u. = 30 MVA.

Fig.4. Non detection zone of over / under frequency relays that is protected by proposed method

Fig.5. Rate of change of frequency and detecting index with considering proposed method for three non-islanding situations: single phase to ground
fault (a), two phases fault (b) and three phases to ground fault (c)

Fig.6. Rate of change of frequency and detecting index with considering proposed method for three non-islanding situations: load adding (30 MW and
10 Mvar) (a), load shedding (20 MW and 7 Mvar) (b) and capacitor switching (20 Mvar) (c)

Fig.7. Rate of change of frequency and detecting index with considering proposed method for three islanding situations: islanding with 10% power
mismatch (a), islanding with 3% power mismatch (b) and islanding with -6% power mismatches (c)

VI.

Resistance (pu)
Inductance (pu)

CONCLUSIONS

This paper proposes a hybrid method for islanding

detection of a synchronous-based DG unit by using the
combination of active and passive methods. The active
method is applied by periodic switching of a high
impedance load and in the case of passive method; rate of
change of frequency is employed. In fact, this method is
supplementary technique for degrading non detection
zone of over / under frequency relays using of both
ROCOF relay (passive method) and high impedance load
switching (active method). It means that this study uses
over/under frequency protection in out of acceptable
constraints and for any variation of frequency inside the
acceptable constraints is used proposed algorithm. The
proposed method has smaller non detection zone than
both ROCOF and over / under frequency relays but
degrade the power quality of system.

APPENDIX
TABLE I
THVENIN EQUIVALENT (SUB) DATA
Nominal voltage (kV)

132

Short- circuit power (MVA)

1500

Resistance ()

Inductance (mH)

30.8

TABLE II
TRANSFORMERS DATA
Transformer
132 kV / 33 kV

Transformer
132 kV / 33 kV

Nominal power (MVA)

100

50

Primary winding
Primary voltage (kV)
Secondary winding

132
Yg

33
Yg

Secondary voltage (kV)

33

0.69

0
0.04

0
0.04

TABLE III
LINES DATA
Resistance (/km)
Inductive reactance (/km)
Length (km)

Line 2-3
0.37
1.57
1.00

Line 3-4
0.97
4.18
0.50

TABLE IV
SYNCHRONOUS GENERATOR DATA
Pair of poles

Nominal power (MVA)

30

Nominal voltage (V)

690

Inertia constant (s)

1.5

Xd (pu)

1.400

Xd (pu)

0.231

Xd (pu)

0.118

Xq (pu)

1.372

Xq (pu)

0.800

Xq (pu)

0.118

Tdo (s)

5.500

Tdo (s)

0.050

Tqo (s)

1.250

Tqo (s)

0.190

Stator resistance (pu)

0.0014

Leakage reactance (pu)

0.050

TABLE V
EXCITER SYSTEM DATA (IEEE TYPE 1 MODEL)
Tr (s)
Ka
Ta (s)
Ke
Te (s)
Kf

0.005
270
0.1
1
0.65
0.048

Tf (s)
VRMAX (pu)
VRMIN (pu)

0.95
7
-4

TABLE VI
G OVERNOR AND HYDRAULIC TURBINE
Servo motor gain (Ka)

10/3

Servo motor time constant (Ta (s))

0.07

Gate opening limits (gmax (pu))

0.9751

Gate opening limits (gmin (pu))

0.01

Permanent droop (Rp)

0.05

Hydraulic turbine ()

Hydraulic turbine (Tw (s))

2.67

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