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An innovative hybrid method for islanding detection using fuzzy classifier for
different circumstances including NDZ

Article in Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences · June 2022

DOI: 10.1016/j.jrras.2022.04.008

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 Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences

journal homepage: www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-radiation-research-and-applied-sciences

An innovative hybrid method for islanding detection using fuzzy classifier

for different circumstances including NDZ
Yasser A. Elshrief a, b, *, Amin D. Asham a, Belgacem Bouallegue c, Abdelmoty Ahmed c,
Dalal H. Helmi d, Belal A. Abozalam b, Sameh Abd-Elhaleem b
a
Electrical Engineering Department, Egyptian Academy for Engineering and Advanced Technology (EAE&AT), Affiliated to the Ministry of Military Production, Cairo,
32511, Egypt
b
Industrial Electronics and Control Engineering Department, Menofia University, Menouf, 32511, Egypt
c
Department of Computer Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
d
Ministry of Electricity, Sector of Electricity Market and Cross-Border Interconnection at (EEHC), Cairo, Cairo, 11765, Egypt

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Distributed energy resources (DERs) are an alternative to conventional fossil fuel-based energy resources for a
Distributed generation pollution-free operation. But the integration of these DERs to the main grid comes with certain challenges, out of
Fuzzy classifier which unintentional islanding detection is of prior importance. A lot of techniques have been used for detecting
Grid faults
islanding, among these techniques, passive and active. Passive islanding detection methods have drawbacks in
Islanding detection
Non-detection zone
the form of the existence of large non-detection zones whereas active detection methods have devastating effects
on power quality. To overcome these drawbacks, a proposed hybrid passive-active systematic methodology based
on a smart classifier that decides to use an active method instead of a passive one; is presented. The simulation
results confirm that the proposed scheme is accurate, robust, fast, simple to implement for inverter-based DGs,
and is able enough to perform effective and rapid detection of islanding in all the circumstances for the chosen
system model without degrading power quality. The proposed scheme was simulated using the MATLAB/
Simulink platform, and the results reflect its potential with a comparative study.

1. Introduction case of maintenance services. On the other hand, unintentional or un­

In recent years, the gradual shift to the non-traditional energy gen­
eration such as distributed generation (DG) sources especially wind
energy, photovoltaic and fuel cell can improve reliability, power quality,
decreases the power losses in the distribution system, avoid capacity
upgrades in power transmission and distribution, and also improves
voltage profile (Baneshi et al., 2020).
Despite all these advantages, using DGs would lead to the appearance
of the islanding phenomenon, which is defined as the state in which a
portion of the power line consists of distributed energy resources and
loads are isolated from the power system, and remain energized.
Intentional and unintentional are the types of islanding, intentional or
planned islanding is used to permit the DG to supply power to the load in
planned islanding happens when the utility loses control of voltage and
frequency due to any fault in the grid or malfunctions in the load.
Hence, unintentional islanding is one of the main technical problems
that are produced when connecting DG to a power system (Elshrief et al.,
2021a) and is assumed a disagreeable state as it may cause a shock
hazard for humans working on the utility side and have negative impacts
on management, operation, and protection of DGs. Moreover, uninten­
tional islanding causes a reduction in the system voltage stability, and
bad restoration (out of phase switching of re-closers results to molder the
DG, near loads, and utility equipment). When unintentional islanding
happens, frequency and voltage in the islanded zone cannot be
controlled by the main utility system, so the recommendation of
IEEE-1547- 2003 is to cut off all DGs from the main grid as soon as

Peer review under responsibility of The Egyptian Society of Radiation Sciences and Applications.
* Corresponding author. Electrical Engineering Department, Egyptian Academy for Engineering and Advanced Technology (EAE&AT), Affiliated to the Ministry of
Military Production, Cairo, 32511, Egypt.
E-mail addresses: yasserelshrief@eaeat.edu.eg, yasserelshrief@yahoo.com (Y.A. Elshrief), amin.danial@eaeat.edu.eg (A.D. Asham), belgacem.bouallegue2015@
gmail.com (B. Bouallegue), abd2005moty@yahoo.com (A. Ahmed), dalal_helmi@yahoo.com (D.H. Helmi), drbelalabozalam@yahoo.com (B.A. Abozalam), sameh.
abdalhaleem@el-eng.menofia.edu.eg (S. Abd-Elhaleem).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrras.2022.04.008
Received 17 February 2022; Received in revised form 10 April 2022; Accepted 28 April 2022
1687-8507/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Egyptian Society of Radiation Sciences and Applications. This is an open access
article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Y.A. Elshrief et al.
Fig. 1. Power flow at Point of Common coupling (PCC).
possible within 2 s after the occurrence of islanding (Elshrief et al.,
2021b).
Generally, there are two main techniques for detecting unintentional
islanding phenomenon, local and remote techniques. Remote techniques
require huge infrastructure and need more reliable communication than
local schemes (Elshrief et al., 2019a, 2021c). So, they are considered
non-economical as they need extremely high cost and hence, these
techniques are rarely used on small scale (Elshrief et al., 2019b). But
local techniques can be categorized into three classes: passive, active,
and artificial intelligence. About passive techniques, the utility param­
eters like current, voltage, harmonic distortion, and frequency are
observed from the DG side at the point of common coupling (PCC) to
detect the islanding occurrence (Elshrief et al., 2021c). The change of
phase deviation over time was applied in (Haider et al., 2018). The
variations of active power with the time and frequency were used in
(Karegar & Shataee, 2008). In (Freitas et al., 2005) islanding is detected
using the measurement of harmonic distortion. Another way is pre­
sented in (Samui & Samantaray, 2011) by using the displacement of
phase angle and the voltage surge. In (Reigosa et al., 2014), the authors
used the frequency and voltage abnormalities values to identify the
islanding incidence. All these passive techniques can’t detect islanding
in NDZ but they can detect islanding in a shorter time.
About active techniques, they depend on disturbing the signals by
injecting some disturbances into the system (Reigosa et al., 2014). Also,
signal processing approaches and artificial intelligence techniques are
used. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and Fourier transform (FT) (Hashemi
et al., 2017; Raza et al., 2015)depend only on a frequency spectrum and
are unable to catch islanding due to the instability features in the cur­
rent, power, and voltage waveforms. Therefore, time-frequency was
proposed to observe non-stationary disturbances, but it also failed to
catch islanding in some cases (Kim et al., 2019) owing to its
non-adaptive window size. In (Alshareef et al., 2014), the machine
learning algorithm was joined with wavelet transform (WT) to notice the
islanding incident and this mixture gave high adaptability and more
accuracy but it has a complexity in learning the rules. The output of WT
was used in (ElNozahy et al., 2011) as input for neuro-fuzzy and this
combination had many merits as simplicity and fast but not accurate. In
(Mohanty et al., 2015) a combination of support vector machines
(SVMs) algorithm and WT with s-transform improves the performance
and minimizes noise but it can’t detect islanding in NDZ.
WT combined with a decision tree classifier to get high applicability
to multi distributed generation networks and fast detection in (Lidula &
Rajapakse, 2012) but it didn’t differ between normal islanding and grid
faults. A hybrid technique of WT with fuzzy in (Samantaray et al., 2010)
is accomplished by a successful performance under various conditions.
All the methods based on wavelet transform depend on a selected signal
for detection which has a great challenge as if the threshold of this signal
is very small, false tripping maybe happens and if is high, the detection
may not occur. In (Wang et al., 2018) they solve the problem of signal
threshold selection, by applying the neuro-fuzzy algorithm on multiple
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Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142
distributed generation microgrid (MG) and can catch the islanding, but
it has a drawback in the case of disconnection of a single DG. A hybrid
technique between an artificial neural network and Fourier transform is
presented in (Abd-Elkader et al., 2014) to detect islanding on the wind
turbine but is more complex in construction. A lot of artificial intelli­
gence techniques are used to catch islanding as support vector machines
(Matic-Cuka & Kezunovic, 2014), the decision tree (Azim et al., 2015),
the adaptive ensemble classifier (Khamis et al., 2018), the modified
Slantlet transform (Ahmadipour et al., 2019), machine learning,
Hilbert-Huang transforms techniques (Mishra & Rout, 2018), and
neuro-fuzzy logic (Bitaraf et al., 2012).
From the previous work, no one uses the combination between
passive and active with a fuzzy classifier to solve the problem of NDZ, in
this paper a novel anti-islanding detection technique is used to get zero
NDZ and accurate islanding detection without degrading the power
quality and the results are verified by Matlab/Simulink. The results of
this paper are compared with the results in (Seyedi et al., 2021). As in
(Seyedi et al., 2021) islanding is detected using a hybrid technique be­
tween the rate of change of voltage and the rate of change of active
power.
The main contributions of the proposed technique can be summa­
rized as:
1 It is able enough to perform effective and rapid detection of islanding
in all the circumstances for the chosen system model without
degrading power quality.
2 Obtaining zero NDZ.
3 Is accurate, robust, fast, and simple to implement for inverter-based
DGs.
4 The proposed technique not only detects islanding but also differs
between it and grid faults.
5 Overcome the problem of determining the appropriate thresholds
using the fuzzy classifier.
The rest of the paper is structured in four sections. Section 2 presents
the definition non-detection zone. Section 3 presents the proposed
technique and its flowchart. The simulation results of islanding condi­
tions that are detected by the proposed technique using MATLAB/
SIMULINK are presented in Section 4. A comparison between the pro­
posed technique and the other technique in (Seyedi et al., 2021) is
presented in section 5. Finally, in Section 6, the conclusions are
summarized.
2. Non-Detection Zone (NDZ)
The NDZ is an area where the intended detection method cannot able
to detect the islanding event properly at a certain time (Elshrief et al.,
2021a). It is the main parameter for evaluating the effectiveness of any
islanding detection method, especially the passive detection methods.
As the passive islanding detection methods have the disadvantage that
Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

( )2 ( )2
V ΔP V
− 1≤ ≤ − 1 (3)
Vmax P Vmin
( )2 ( )2
f ΔQ f
1− ≤ ≤1− (4)
fmin P fmax
As (Vmax .fmax.Vmin.andfmin ) are the maximum (voltage, frequency)
and the minimum (voltage, frequency) respectively calculated at the
PCC, and their values are detected according to the IEEE 1547 series
standard are shown in Table 1.

The load reactive power can be illustrated by equation (5) (Seyedi

et al., 2021).
( )
1
QLOAD = 3v2 − wn C (5)
wn L
Fig. 2. NDZ of islanding (shaded region).
where wn .L. ​ C ​ and ​ v are the nominal frequency load, inductance,
capacitance, and voltage, respectively. By taking into account the unity
Table 1
power factor, so the reactive power mismatch is equal to the load
Standard IEEE 1547 for anti-islanding techniques (Elshrief et al., 2021a).
reactive power (Seyedi et al., 2021) which can be calculated using (6):
Parameters Standard ( )
3v2 ( ) 3v2 wn 2
Range of Voltage 88% ≤ V ≤ 110% ΔQ = 1 − wn 2 LC = 1− (6)
Range of Frequency 49.5 HZ ≤ f ≤ 50.5 HZ wn L wn L wr 2
The maximum time for islanding detection 2s
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD %) ≤5% where wr is the load resonance frequency.
wr = wn ± Δw (7)
they are not able to work when the DG generation matches the local load
Therefore, the reactive power mismatch for NDZ calculation can be
perfectly, or the power difference between them is small. The Power
written as follows (Seyedi et al., 2021):
flow between the utility grid and DG source is shown in Fig. 1.
( )
NDZ represented by the shaded region in Fig. 2, can also be defined 3v2 fn 2
as the area where there is a power mismatch between the utility grid and ΔQ = 1− (8)
wn L (fn ± Δf )2
DG source that is established by a coordinate system using an active
power mismatch axis and a reactive power mismatch axis (ΔP and ΔQ), where wr .Δf are the resonance frequency and permissible frequency
that are declared in equation (1)&2 (Elshrief et al., 2021a): range, respectively.
ΔP = PDG − PLOAD (1) On the other hand, ΔP is declared by equation (1) (Elshrief et al.,
2021a) and the load active power can be illustrated by equation (9)
ΔQ = QDG − QLOAD (2) (Seyedi et al., 2021).

PDG andQDG are the DG source real and reactive power, respectively. 3v2
PLOAD = (9)
Similarly,PLOAD andQLOAD are loads of real and reactive powers, their R1
threshold limits are determined by equations (3) & (4) (Elshrief et al., The active power mismatch is the difference between the active
2021a). power attracted by local load resistance as R1 which causes deviation as
ΔV in voltage (Seyedi et al., 2021).

Fig. 3. The three-level VSC Stage connected to the inverter in the DG power stage.

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Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 4. The Simulink implementation of the VSC Control.

( )
3v2 1 grid voltage, then the active power and the reactive power can be
ΔP = − 1 (10)
R1 (1 ± ΔV)2
3. Concept of the proposed technique
The concept of the proposed technique depends mainly on the
voltage source converter (VSC) controller and will be described in the
following paragraph:
3.1. Voltage Source Converter controller
The three-level VSC that is declared in Fig. 3 and its Simulink
implementation is depicted in Fig. 4 (Elshrief et al., 2021a) regulates the
dc bus voltage at 600 V and keeps the unity power factor.
VSC controller presented in Fig. 4, shows the control system that uses
two control loops: an external control loop that regulates the reference
of dc-link voltage (Vdc− ref) to 600 V and an internal control loop that
regulates Id and Iq grid currents (active and reactive current compo­
nents). Id current reference (idref ) is the output of the dc voltage regu­
lator. Iq current reference (iqref ) is set to zero to maintain the unity power
factor. The voltage outputs of the current controller (vd &vq ) are con­
verted to three modulating signals (Vvsc ) used by the pulse-width mod­
ulation (PWM) three-level pulse generator.
So the active and reactive power of the PV grid converter in a dq
frame is given by Equations (11) and (12) (Khamis et al., 2018):
/ ( ) power are the inputs to the fuzzy system to make a decision, for example;
P = 3 2 Vd id + Vq iq (11)
/ ( ) values aren’t small, that means, there is no connection between the DG
Q = 3 2 Vd id − Vq iq (12)
The idref is the desired active output power control, while iqref is the
desired reactive output power, and also used to achieve unity power
factor operation, in which the grid current vector is in phase with the
grid voltage vector, thus iqref should be zero. Aligning the d axis with the
expressed by (Khamis et al., 2018):
P = 3 / 2(Vd id ) (13)
/ ( )
Q = − 3 2 Vd iq (14)
Equations (13) and (14) indicate that P is proportional to id and can
therefore be controlled by it. Similarly, the reactive power Q is regulated
by controlling iq . So the proposed technique can control islanding by
making a variation in iq that will lead to a variation in reactive power
hence the reactive power will be the main parameter for detecting
islanding.
3.2. The main concept of the proposed technique
From the whole anti-islanding detection techniques mentioned in
section 1, we conclude that the passive techniques are the simplest and
cheapest but it has large NDZ, on the other hand, active techniques have
a small NDZ but it degrades power quality and insert disturbances
during the grid-connected operation. The proposed method aims to
detect islanding accurately even in NDZ, reduce the injection of dis­
turbances and overcome the problem of determining the appropriate
thresholds using a fuzzy classifier system. The proposed technique
measures the reactive power of PV (QPv ), load (Qload ), and grid (QGrid )
using a power meter (PM) as depicted in Fig. 5, and the flowchart of the
proposed technique is presented in Fig. 6. These three values of reactive
if the value of reactive power of the grid is small and the other two
and utility grid Then synchronization is checked, if it is active and has
reached steady-state (SS), so islanding is detected. But if the value of
reactive power of the grid isn’t small, in this case, it means that there is a
connection between DG and grid, and hence no islanding is detected. In
the case of a small value of the 3 m, the order for disturb is generated and

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the proposed technique.

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Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 6. Flowchart of the proposed technique.

Fig. 7. Matlab implementation of the proposed technique.

applies a change to the Iq of the inverter by varying power factor to be in iq is within 5% according to standards (Elshrief et al., 2021a) and it is
0.95 at minimum to guarantee that the power quality of the system at measured by equation (15)
PCC isn’t affected. This change in Iq will affect the reactive power of PV √̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
∑H 2̅
by a small variation, if there isn’t any change on the reactive power of h=2 Ih
the grid, and synchronization is still active, hence islanding is detected, THD = × 100 (15)
I1
but if there is a change that means there is no islanding and repeats the
As Ih is the RMS value of the hth harmonic component of the current
measurements. THD is an indication to ensure that the effect of variation
and I1 is the RMS value of the fundamental component of the current.

133
Y.A. Elshrief et al.
Fig. 8. Membership function for reactive power of PV (X1).
3.3. Fuzzy inference system
According to the frequent parameters variation of the studied sys­
tem, the fuzzy classifier is more effective compared with the crisp
classifier. As shown in Fig. 7, three reactive power measurements of PV,
load, and grid are entering the fuzzy system as inputs, and the outputs
are the island and disturb. If the fuzzy output is an island, then it checks
the synchronization between grid and DG if yes then the islanding de­
cision is energized. But if the fuzzy output is disturb, then it enters the
Matlab function to make the change in Iq of the inverter by the way that
doesn’t be less than 0.95 power factor, then the three reactive values are
checked again to get the final decision if islanding or repeats the
sequence of disturbance after guaranteeing the synchronization between
grid and DG. So the fuzzy rules are in the form of (if, then rule) and are
represented as follows:
1. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Large)
2. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is
Small) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
3. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
4. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Me­
dium) THEN (Island is Medium) AND (Disturb is Medium)
Fig. 9. Membership function for reactive power of grid (X2).
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Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142
5. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is Me­
dium) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
6. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Medium)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
7. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Medium) AND (Disturb is Medium)
8. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Medium)
9. If (PV-Q is Small) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
10. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is
Small) THEN (Island is Medium) AND (Disturb is Small)
11. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Me­
dium) THEN (Island is Large) AND (Disturb is Medium)
12. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Large) AND (Disturb is Small)
13. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is
Small) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Medium)
14. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is
Medium) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
15. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is
Large) THEN (Island is Medium) AND (Disturb is Small)
16. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 10. Membership function for reactive power of load (X3).

Fig. 11. Membership function for the island (Q1).

17. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Me­
dium) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
18. If (PV-Q is Medium) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
19. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Large)
20. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Medium)
THEN (Island is Large) AND (Disturb is Small)
21. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Small) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Large) AND (Disturb is Small)
22. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Medium) AND (Disturb is Small)

Fig. 12. Membership function for Disturb (Q2).

135
Y.A. Elshrief et al.
Fig. 13. Islanding detection in normal cases.
23. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is Me­
dium) THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
24. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Medium) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
25. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Small)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Medium)
26. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Medium)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
27. If (PV-Q is Large) AND (Grid-Q is Large) AND (Load-Q is Large)
THEN (Island is Small) AND (Disturb is Small)
3.4. Membership function formulation
There are many different choices of membership functions, and after
trying, the trapezoidal membership function is the most effective
compared to the triangular and Gaussian one. Reactive powers of PV,
Grid, and load are taken to be the fuzzy inputs (x1, x2, and x3), but the
island and disturb are the fuzzy outputs (Q1 and Q2). The following
Figs. 8–12 are the membership functions for the monitored parameters
inputs and outputs.
Fig. 14. Islanding detection in NDZ case.
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Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142
4. The Matlab implementation results of a hybrid passive-active
technique with a fuzzy classifier scheme
The proposed technique is applied to the model presented in (Elshrief
et al., 2021d). All figures of the results consist of three columns; the
three input signals of the fuzzy system (Q-PV, Q-load, Q-Grid) and total
harmonic distortion of voltage (THD-V) are presented in the first col­
umn. Active powers (P-PV, P-Load, P-Grid) and THD of current (THD-I)
are presented in the second column, the third column consist of the
synchronization signal between DG and grid, the variation signal for the
inverter (iq), and the two outputs of the fuzzy system; disturb and island.
The results are classified into two types: by applying varying load and
grid faults as presented below:
4.1. Simulation results of diff erent values of load for islanding
phenomenon
4.1.1. Power mismatch between DG and Load (normal case)
Fig. 13 presents the simulation result of applying islanding at 0.3 s
after disconnection of the circuit breaker in case of a load that consumes
25 kW, 10 kVAr. So in this figure, the Q-grid starts to supply the Q-load
Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 15. Applying single-phase fault to the proposed technique.

until the synchronization becomes active then it continues supplying the
Q-load and it is found that Q-PV is still zero as iq equals zero. This will
last until islanding occurs, then the value of Q-Grid decrease to zero and
the Q-PV start increasing to substitute the value of Q-load. In this case,
the decision of fuzzy is to generate the islanding detection signal and be
sure that the synchronization signal between grid and DG is active, and
then islanding is detected. In this situation, there is no variation in Iq and
hence no disturb signal, and so the THD-I and THD-V of the system don’t
reach 5% in the zone of the detection according to IEEE standards hence
there is no effect on the power quality of the system. Fig. 13 also presents
the relation between the active powers as the P-grid starts to supply the
P-load until the synchronization becomes active then the P-PV switch to
supply the P-load instead of the P-grid and the remaining power went to
the grid, which will last until islanding occurs, then the value of P-grid
decrease to zero and the whole P-PV went to load.
4.1.2. Power match between DG and Load (NDZ case)
In the case of (NDZ) in Fig. 14 the load consumes 100 kW, 0 kVAr,
after disconnection, it is found that the value of Q-PV equals to Q-Grid
which means an active technique must be used so the fuzzy generates the
disturbance signal and repeats the measurements if the status of disturb
is held active for 0.01 s, Iq will be changed according to the change of
power factor to be 0.95 instead of 1. THD is an indication to ensure that
the effect of variation in iq is within 5% according to standards (Elshrief
et al., 2021b). If this variation affects the Q-grid and the synchronization
signal is still active that means there is no islanding, but if there is no
variation in the Q-grid, islanding will be detected. If the synchronization
is failed for any reason islanding can’t be detected.
Fig. 14 also presents the relation between the active powers as the P-
grid starts to supply the P-load until the synchronization becomes active,
then the P-PV switch to supply the P-load instead of the P-grid that will

Fig. 16. Applying double phase fault to the proposed technique.

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Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 17. Applying double phase fault with the ground to the proposed technique.

Fig. 18. Applying three-phase fault to the proposed technique.

last without any change after islanding occurrence so active power can’t
be assumed a good parameter to detect islanding in case of NDZ.
4.2. Simulation results of diff erent types of faults impact
Faults are applied to clarify the accuracy of the proposed technique
by observing the behavior of each fault. For example, a single-phase
fault applied at 0.3 s for a load that nearly consumes 25 kW, 10 kVAr,
and its performance presented in Fig. 15, the Q-grid starts to supply the
Q-load until the synchronization becomes active. Then it continues
supplying the Q-load and it is found that Q-PV is still zero as Iq equals
zero, which will last until a fault occurs. In this case, there is a discon­
nection in the synchronization signal between grid and DG due to the
fault, so fuzzy didn’t generate the islanding detection signal. As there is
no variation in Iq hence no disturb signal, as a result of that the THD-I
and THD-V of the system don’t reach 5% and hence no effect on the
power quality of the system. Fig. 15 also presents the relation between
the active powers as the P-grid starts to supply the P-load until the
synchronization becomes active then the P-PV switch to supply the P-
load instead of the P-grid and the remaining power went to the grid,
which will last until a fault occurs. That will last until a fault occurs, then
the value of P-PV decrease to zero, and the grid return to supply the P-
load. The other faults as a double-phase fault, double-phase fault with
the ground, three-phase fault, and three-phase fault with the ground are
applied with the same load, and their performance are shown in
Figs. 16–19 sequentially.

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Fig. 19. Applying three-phase fault with the ground to the proposed technique.
Fig. 20. The flowchart of the ROCOV and ROCOAP technique (Seyedi
et al., 2021).
5. Comparison between the proposed technique and the hybrid
technique published in [ 29]
The proposed technique is compared with a hybrid technique pre­
sented in (Seyedi et al., 2021).
It consists of a combination of the rate of change of voltage (ROCOV)
and the rate of change of active power (ROCOAP) presented in (Seyedi
et al., 2021)and its flowchart depicted in Fig. 20. The ROCOAP is only
activated when the islanding condition is suspected by ROCOV and the
decision is taken if the value of voltage or frequency relay exceeds the
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Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142
thresholds detected by IEEE standards. The results of these techniques
are classified into two types: by applying varying load and grid faults as
declared below:
5.1. Simulation results of diff erent values of load for islanding
phenomenon in (Seyedi et al., 2021)
Fig. 21 presents the simulation result using the combination between
ROCOV and ROCOAP (Seyedi et al., 2021) of applying islanding at 0.3 s
after disconnection of the circuit breaker that connects the DG with the
utility grid in case of a low load value that consumes 25 kW, 10 kVAr. So
in this figure, the connected load has a power less than the PV genera­
tion. If the ROCOV is above zero value, the ROCOAP is activated. Then,
the over-voltage relay exceeds the threshold value in case of a lower load
and hence islanding is detected.
Fig. 22 presents the simulation results of applying relays in (Seyedi
et al., 2021) in the case of the non-detection zone, by using loads that
consume 103 kW, 0 kVAr. It is clear from this figure that the combina­
tion between ROCOV and ROCOAP can’t detect islanding in NDZ. The
case of applying a large load is presented in Fig. 24.
5.2. Simulation results of diff erent types of faults impact in (Seyedi et al.,
2021)
Faults are applied to clarify the accuracy of the proposed technique
and the behavior is recorded in each case. For example, a double-phase
fault is applied on the grid at 0.3 s in case of similarity between the load
consumption power and the power generated from the DG, and its effect
on islanding detection relays mentioned in reference (Seyedi et al.,
2021) and is shown in Fig. 23. The performance of the other faults as
single-phase fault, double-phase fault with the ground, three-phase
fault, and three-phase fault with the ground are summarized in Fig. 24
showing the superiority of the proposed technique over the compared
one in (Seyedi et al., 2021) and that is presented in values with yellow
colors.
6. Conclusion and future work
This paper makes a comprehensive analysis of a new hybrid meth­
odology for detecting islanding operations in inverter-based DGs. This
Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 21. Islanding detection relays when low power load in (Seyedi et al., 2021).

Fig. 22. Islanding detection relay of NDZ in (Seyedi et al., 2021).

proposed technique is accurate, robust, fast, simple to implement for
inverter-based DGs, and can work properly with grid faults. The pro­
posed method combines the passive method and active method with a
fuzzy classifier system, which has three inputs measurements (reactive
power of, PV, load, and grid). According to their values, FIS decides
whether the islanding is detectable, or a reactive power must be injected
to be able to detect the islanding situation. Hence, the system acts as a
passive detection technique if the decision of fuzzy is islanding, but if it
can’t decide, the FIS system activates the active mode and injects
reactive power. The proposed hybrid technique is compared with the
hybrid technique between ROCOV and ROCOAP presented in (Seyedi
et al., 2021). These techniques are tested by considering different cir­
cumstances of loads including NDZ and the grid faults in the power
system. From the comparison, it is clarified that the hybrid proposed

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Y.A. Elshrief et al. Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences 15 (2022) 129–142

Fig. 23. Double phase fault in NDZ in (Seyedi et al., 2021).

Fig. 24. Comparison between the hybrid proposed technique and the hybrid technique in (Seyedi et al., 2021) in terms of the time of detection in (sec).

technique has superiority in time detection over the hybrid technique
presented in (Seyedi et al., 2021) in all cases of varying load including
the NDZ also it has accuracy in differentiating between islanding cases
and grid faults. A suggestion for future work is to extend the study. Our
study only focuses on single DG so it would be interesting to introduce
the proposed technique for a multi DG environment due to its less
computational burden and higher accuracy with smaller detection time.
Another extension of this study is to include testing of adaptive fuzzy
(Elshrief et al., 2016a, 2016b, 2017; Wan et al., 2021), also a combi­
nation between active frequency drift (Elshrief et al., 2020) and rate of
change of frequency (Elshrief et al., 2019c) with ANFIS (Karaboga &
Kaya, 2019) can be introduced.
Acknowledgments
The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific
Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through Large
Groups [Grant No. RGP.2/208/43).
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