Loss of Utility Detection Capabilities for Today's Utility Interconnected Photovoltaic Inverters

The level of installed photovoltaic (PV) generation has surpassed 35 GW in the United States and the solar penetration continues to increase at a high rate. Almost all installations up to now rely on utility interconnection requirements based on 2003 standards, which made distributed energy resources (DER) devices sensitive to perturbations on the utility, would quickly disconnect, and would not provide utility support when most needed. This is changing, and to minimize adverse effects on the performance of electrical power systems, PV inverters must implement voltage and frequency ride-through capabilities and provide voltage and frequency support features. These new utility support requirements have caused renewed concern of loss of utility capabilities of PV DER devices. This paper focuses on revisions to the utility interconnection requirements and investigates the impacts of these changes on the islanding detection capabilities of PV inverters.