An agent brokering-based scheme for anti-islanding protection of distributed generation

Anti-islanding protection of distributed generation (DG) is a significant technical barrier for the DG industry. This paper presents an innovative agent brokering-based anti-islanding scheme developed in response to the challenge. The scheme enables relay operational signals to be transferred to downstream DG units for coordinating their connection status using the multi-agent system (MAS) technology. A DG unit is considered as islanded from the upstream system if a trip signal is received at the DG unit. A number of software agents have been developed based on a generic structure for device control, data transfer and communication and the proposed scheme has been simulated using an established distribution system model integrated with four DG units. Two scenarios are designed to evaluate the performance of the scheme in handling multiple faults and change of system topology issues respectively. The simulation results are promising and the flexibility and scalability of the scheme are discussed.