Abstract This paper proposes a simple yet effective Distribution Phasor Measurements based Islanding Detector (DPMID). The proposed detector relies on the voltage phasor measurements, obtained from the Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU), deployed at the respective Distributed Generator (DG) bus. Next, Teager-Kaiser energy of the positive sequence voltage is readily computed, which effectively discriminates the islanding scenarios from other non-islanding scenarios. The efficacy of the proposed method is verified through various PSCAD/EMTDC simulation, and Hardware-In-Loop (HIL) experiment using Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) and DS1104 micro-controller. A detailed comparative assessment of the proposed method (PM) with recent islanding detection techniques preceded by online signal parameter estimation demonstrates the superiority of the PM with respect to various islanding detection standard such as IEEE 1547–2018, UL1741-SA.