Solar Inverter - Anti-islanding Protection

Anti-islanding Protection

In the event of a power failure on the grid, it is generally required that any grid-tie inverters attached to the grid turn off in a short period of time. This prevents the inverters from continuing to feed power into small sections of the grid, known as "islands". Powered islands present a risk to workers who may expect the area to be unpowered, but equally important is the issue that without a grid signal to synchronize to, the power output of the inverters may drift from the tolerances required by customer equipment connected within the island.

Detecting the presence or lack of a grid source would appear to be simple, and in the case of a single inverter in any given possible physical island (between disconnects on the distribution lines for instance) the chance that an inverter would fail to notice the loss of the grid is effectively zero. However, if there are two inverters in a given island, things become considerably more complex. It is possible that the signal from one can be interpreted as a grid feed from the other, and vice versa, so both units continue operation. As they track each other's output, the two can drift away from the limits imposed by the grid connections, say in voltage or frequency.

There are a wide variety of methodologies used to detect an islanding condition. None of these are considered fool-proof, and utility companies continue to impose limits on the number and total power of solar power systems connected in any given area. However, many in-field tests have failed to uncover any real-world islanding issues, and the issue remains contentious within the industry.

Since 1999, the standard for anti-islanding protection in the United States has been UL 1741, harmonized with IEEE 1547. Any inverter which is listed to the UL 1741 standard may be connected to a utility grid without the need for additional anti-islanding equipment, anywhere in the United States or other countries where UL standards are accepted.

Similar acceptance of the IEEE 1547 in Europe is also taking place, as most electrical utilities will be providing or requiring units with this capability.