The effect of inrush transients on PV inverter’s grid impedance measurement based on inter-harmonic injection

This paper addresses a cause for false tripping of photovoltaic inverters with anti-islanding protection based on impedance measurement with inter-harmonic injection. Earlier discussions about tripping problems happening when several devices are doing the measurement at the same time are supplemented with a problem caused by inrush transients of nearby devices. A series of experiments was conducted in the Power Quality laboratory of the TU/e, on a PV inverter which complies with the DIN VDE 0126 standard. Impedance measurement was done in parallel with the inverter and measurement results are presented. A criterion for false tripping caused by transients is explored. Also, influences of network impedance and grid harmonic pollution on false tripping were analyzed. In the end, some signal processing techniques are proposed to avoid this problem.