Discussion of a Power Line Carrier Communications-Based Anti-Islanding Scheme using a Commercial Automatic Meter Reading System

Many methods for detecting and preventing islanding of photovoltaic and other distributed energy resources (DERs) have been proposed. However, in general, all anti-islanding systems that are based in the inverter have a "non-detection zone" (NDZ), which is a range of loads that defeat that anti-islanding mechanism. One alternative is to use power line carrier communications (PLCC). In this work, a PLCC-based anti-islanding system that works with a commercially-available automatic meter reading system is explored. Initial experimental results on this PLCC anti-islanding system are presented. The effectiveness of PLCC-based islanding prevention is discussed, and conclusions about this method are offered