Slides for Webinar:Photovoltaic Inverter Operational Mode Flexibility in Distribution Feeders

High instantaneous penetration levels of solar PV generation on distribution feeders can lead to anomalous power flows. Such transients often develop from reverse power flows caused by disruption of PV-load balance during brownouts that can trigger the low-voltage side protection devices at the point of common coupling with possibility of unintentional islanding. The presentation is an attempt to showcase major findings of a 2-year study done on benchmark distribution models and emulated feeders that explored the effect of load models and instantaneous power balances between loads and PV inverters in shaping up transient spikes that could potentially island a section. These "islanding precursors" were used in a machine-learning framework so as to alert the inverter control circuitry. Such preemptive islanding-detection capability can be leveraged to isolate the inverter and switch to a V/f regulation mode to safely continue supply to the islanded section.