Review of islanding detection using advanced signal processing techniques

Increasing the integration of distributed generation (DG) into distribution networks provides many technological benefits, including improving system security, performance, and reliability. The intermittent nature of renewable DGs poses certain difficulties for this integration. Moreover, the large integration of DGs will lead to islanding conditions in the power system. In the islanded operation, the microgrid keeps power injection into the network. The islanding event can occur intentionally or unintentionally; the former is controllable and required for maintaining the main utility, whereas the latter is uncontrollable, caused by regular faults. However, islanding detection is important for ensuring the system’s reliability and operation. Hence, a comprehensive review is made in this paper to examine different methods for islanding detection in the power system. Unlike the previous review papers, the proposed review paper focused on different types of islanding detection methods, including active, reactive, hybrid active–passive methods, deep learning and machine learning techniques. All of these methods have their advantage and disadvantages. Moreover, the complexities in power systems increased with the increasing penetration of DGs. Thus, the rapid islanding detection technique is necessary for improving the system’s performance. This review has provided some recent literature for signal processing, which includes the recent feature selection and advance finding for islanding occurrences. From the comparative analysis, it is found that the Non-detection zone (NDZ) is more in the passive method is higher than in the active and hybrid active–passive methods. At the same time, the remote islanding detection methods are NDZ free, but it has computational complexities when compared with existing methods. Moreover, the DL based methods have higher computational time due to large training and testing data. It is found that hybrid methods are more feasible for providing accurate results in islanding detection. In addition to that, a feasible and economical solution in terms of recent research trends is provided.