The main objectives of this paper are to identify the major challenges of islanding-detection and suggest an appropriate islanding-detection method (IDM) for grid-connected solar photovoltaic system (GCSPVS) application using multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) analysis. Related articles appearing in the field of islanding-detections for GCSPVS as well as other types of distributed generators are studied and analyzed so that the following questions can be answered: Which factors dominate the selection of IDM? Which evaluating factors are the crucial ones? Which evaluating criteria are paid more attention to for a particular application? In this research, the preferences of the criteria with their correlations have been evaluated by the analytic network process (ANP). And, these criteria preferences are made involved in the decision matrix of the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) which is a distance based optimization technique. Unlike hierarchy based approach, the proposed approach takes into account the interdependence relationships among all the constraint of IDM selection and the sensitivity analysis of the model indicates the robustness of the selection. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.