Onboard energy storage in rail transport: Review of real applications and techno‐economic assessments

Abstract

Despite low energy and fuel consumption levels in the rail sector, further improvements are being pursued by manufacturers and operators. Their primary efforts aim to reduce traction energy demand, replace diesel, and limit the impact of electrified overhead infrastructures. From a system-level perspective, the integration of alternative energy sources on board rail vehicles has become a popular solution among rolling stock manufacturers. Surveys are made of many recent realizations of multimodal rail vehicles with onboard electrochemical batteries, supercapacitors, and hydrogen fuel cell systems. The ratings, technical features, and operating data of onboard sources are gathered for each application, and a comparison among different technologies is presented. Traction system architectures and energy-control strategies of actual multimodal units are explored and compared with literature research. Moreover, the maturity and potential of recent technologies and alternative topologies of power converters for multimodal traction systems are discussed. Ultimately, onboard storage systems are compared with other solutions for energy-saving and catenary-free operation, with particular focus on their current techno-economic attractiveness as an alternative to diesel propulsion.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Multiobjective Vector Modulation for Improved Control of NPC-Based Multi-Source Inverters in Hybrid Traction Systems

“…As known from the theory of αβ transform [28], each of these sets sums up to zero (i.e., it is a "pure" three-phase set) and, thus, comprises at least one negative element. Hence, the quantities obtained through (13a) and (13b) do not comply with the leftmost inequality in (5). Similarly, the rightmost inequality in (5) is not guaranteed in general by the inverse transform and must be imposed separately.…”

“…Hence, the quantities obtained through (13a) and (13b) do not comply with the leftmost inequality in (5). Similarly, the rightmost inequality in (5) is not guaranteed in general by the inverse transform and must be imposed separately. Therefore, the sets of duty cycles obtained from (13a) and (13b) cannot be straightly employed to generate the PWM gate signals.…”

“…Indeed, (14a) shifts the three differential duty cycles d k above the zero, ensuring the leftmost inequality in (5) and a safe operation of the converter. On the other hand, (14b) shifts each bottom duty cycle d Bk above the differential duty cycle d k of the same leg, ensuring the middle inequality in (5). Ultimately, the proper duty cycles d Tk for the top components can be obtained from (3).…”

Analysis of the Efficiency of Traction Drive Control Systems of Electric Locomotives with Asynchronous Traction Motors

“…An electric rolling stock can be conventionally classified by the nature of its operation as either mainline [18,19], urban [20,21], suburban [22,23], or quarry [24,25]. The choice of a control system that takes into account the operating conditions of an electric rolling stock is an important task during the design of an electric traction drive.…”

Research on the application of on-board energy storage on an electric locomotive for quarry railway transport

“…The concept of managing energy flows in the electric traction system is important for the effective use of OESSs. The analysis of the sources shows that the structure and parameters of the traction electric drive and OESS depend on the type of rolling stock and its operating conditions [2].…”