  A new method for stability assessment of inverter-based microgrids is
presented in this paper. It leverages the notion of critical clusters -- a
localized group of inverters with parameters having the highest impact on the
system stability. The spectrum of the weighted network admittance matrix is
proposed to decompose a system into clusters and rank them based on their
distances from the stability boundary. We show that each distinct eigenvalue of
this matrix is associated with one cluster, and its eigenvectors reveal a set
of inverters that participate most in the corresponding cluster. The least
stable or unstable clusters correspond to higher values of respective
eigenvalues of the weighted admittance matrix. We also establish an upper
threshold for eigenvalues that determines the stability boundary of the entire
system and demonstrate that this value depends only on the grid type (i.e.
$R/X$ ratio of the network) and does not depend on the grid topology.
Therefore, the proposed method provides the stability certificate based on this
upper threshold and identifies the lines or inverter droop settings needed to
be adjusted to restore or improve the stability.
