What is Grid islanding scheme ?

Why it is
required ?
Published on May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 • 198 Likes • 22 Comments

 Report this post

Vrushank DesaiFollow
Power system study engineer at System Protection (Electrical Services & Consultants)

 Like198
 Comment22

 Share
o LinkedIn
o Facebook
o Twitter

In recent years, industrial system are getting advanced and increases their capacity day by day. In order to meet the process and production
requirement more power is needed. As result to run continuous process industries are usually parallel their in house generator with local grid
to fulfill the requirements.

The main objective to connect grid in parallel with in-house generator are as under,

 To Black start of island (Plant),

However, The connecting grid in parallel with in house generation have it own benefits, at the same time one shall keep in mind if proper
protection is not provided, generator may have subjected risk and chance of damage during disturbance, fault, and any switching operation
take place in grid.

These disturbances may lead to frequency and voltage collapse of the system, in worst case cascade tripping leading to complete blackout
of plant.

What is grid islanding scheme ?

In order to safeguard our in house generation during grid side disturbance dedicated protection scheme is very much essential. The process
of disconnecting the Plant from the Utility (during parallel operation) in case of Grid disturbances is called Grid Islanding Scheme.

In simple word, Grid Islanding scheme means as the name indicates it isolates grid from our island (Power plant) in case of any grid
side disturbance or fault.
Fig : Typical Grid Islanding scheme

The causes of disturbances in grid network may be,

 Load and Generation imbalance

It is essential to isolate the island from the grid as quickly as possible to save the generator and production of plant.

Why grid islanding is required ?

Grid Islanding scheme is a set of protective relays, connected at the grid incomer- these relays will sense a disturbance in the grid and give a
trip command to the incomer breaker whenever the grid disturbance exceeds a set limit. By opening the incomer breaker, the plant is
isolated from the disturbed grid and we can keep our generator safe.

Selection of grid islanding relay is very vital process as it decides the proper operation of grid islanding. The selected protective device for
grid islanding scheme shall having protection function like directional over current & earth fault Protection, Reverse power protection,
voltage vector shift protection, rate of change of frequency protection, under / over voltage protection, under / over frequency protection,
negative phase sequence protection, residual over voltage protection.

Important points to be kept in mind while implementing and engineering of grid islanding scheme,

 Condition of parallel operation to be established in protective relay via circuit breaker contact (52a)
 Grid islanding setting shall not operative when grid is operating in solo mode
 Grid islanding scheme shall be take place within safe limit of Critical Clearing Time (CCT) of the generator which derived through
transient stability study
 Frequency, voltage and overcurrent protection functions of grid islanding relay shall be coordinated with generator protection
relays. At the same time it is important to ensure that grid islanding scheme shall be inoperative for plant Internal faults, and
transient conditions. Also, all grid islanding protection setting are require to be fine tuned at site.
 Changeover of governor and AVR mode is envisage followed by grid islanding operation.
 After grid islanding our main focus shall be shifted on to meet generation and load balance (plant which are importing power
from grid). It can be taken care by cutting down non critical load of the system through dedicated load sheeding scheme.

Hence, It is required to have dedicated protection scheme for industrial plant which have parallel connectivity of grid with in house
generator, to keep our generator safe from grid side disturbances. Also, after grid islanding our concern shall be shifted to match
load generation balance using dedicated load shedding scheme by isolating non-critical load from generator which prevent
generator from overloading.

Reference:

1. IEEE paper on Islanding and Load shedding schemes for captive power plants by K. Rajamani and U. K. Hambarde
2. Protection Relay Application Guide - Micom P341 Schneider Electric make

Published By

Vrushank Desai
Power system study engineer at System Protection (Electrical Services & Consultants)
Follow

This article covers basic of Grid Islanding scheme, for safety of generator which are running in
parallel with infinite grid. Also it includes important points which are to be kept in mind, while
implementing and engineering of grid islanding scheme. Hope you like it ! Any other suggestion on
this subject is also welcomed. #powersystems #electricalengineering #gridislanding #generators
#grid #powersystemstudies #P341

22 comments

Sign in to leave your comment

ABHIJEET KUMAR SINGH

Thanks for posting. Great work and love to read more Electrical concepts and Case studies from you in Future.

Like
Reply
1 Like
11mo

 Report this comment

Rob Gould
Thanks for the quick overview. While I would love to see the 'how' part of the paper as well, you have provided 'primer' insights -> to help
gain interest in the topic. Thank you!

Like
Reply
1 Like
11mo

 Report this comment

Thanks for posting. Very much informative

Like
Reply
1 Like
11mo

 Report this comment

Vishnu Sharma
Operation Engineer | Monitoring Engineer | ESP Electrical Engineer at 2*660 MW Super
Critical Thermal Power Plant

Absolutely good for knowledge 👍

Like
Reply
1 Like
11mo

 Report this comment

Sergio Aldama
Docente de Proyecto en Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de la República

Great Article

Like
Reply
1 Like
11mo

 Report this comment

I feel the article is not complete in someway. You have just explained the 'why' of grid islanding but not the how? Moreover, when one has a
'df/dt' relay in the grid islanding scheme, what is the need for vector surge relay? Also, the process of load shedding is not explained in detail.
And, have you heard of load shading?

Like
Reply
1 Like
1 Reply

Vrushank Desai
Power system study engineer at System Protection (Electrical Services & Consultants)

Thank you for your valuable feedback. My submission on your comments are as under: 1. Article is all about "What and Why of Grid islanding
scheme only !" The topic of grid islanding is very broad subject and can take considerable time to cover in depth for explaining each and
every protection element. Hence, only basic of the grid islanding scheme is covers. 2. Voltage Vector Shift protection element measures the
change in voltage angle over power system half cycle. Yes of course, it is replica of df/dt protection only. However, response of vector shift
function is much faster than df/dt in loss of main condition. 3. The article is all about basics of grid islanding scheme only. Hence, Load
shedding scheme is not explain in detail, I will surely write dedicated article on it in future.