Power system islands, autonomous microgrids and relevant instrumentation

Unplanned power system islanding is usually seen as a major risky operating condition and specific countermeasures are applied in order to avoid it. However the capability of voluntary disconnection from the external grid and autonomous operation is often a requirement for some industrial power systems and power plants. The panel session at the 2012 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference on “Power system islands, autonomous microgrids and relevant instrumentation” aims at providing an occasion to exchange ideas and experiences in order to envisage situations in which voluntary power system islanding may be useful and to define the instrumentation required for a reliable operation in islanded conditions. This paper, provided by the organizers, reviews some activities recently carried out on this topic at their institution.