Recent developments and applications of energy storage devices in electrified railways

Abstract

This study presents the recent application of energy storage devices in electrified railways, especially batteries, flywheels, electric double layer capacitors and hybrid energy storage devices. The storage and reuse of regenerative braking energy is managed by energy storage devices depending on the purpose of each system. The advantages resulting from the use of energy storage devices are presented by observing the results of both verification tests and practical applications in passenger services. Several real installations of energy storage for railways are shown and compared by using the Ragone plot. The effect of the use of energy storage devices on electrified railways of the future is discussed. Finally, a discussion on the recent applications and developments of energy storage devices is presented in this study. The effective use of energy storage devices is characterised on the basis of the specific applications and current trends of the research undertaken by public bodies and manufacturers.

Initial Firing Angle Control of Parallel Multi-Pulse Thyristor Dual Converter for Urban Railway Power Substations

“…When the proposed algorithm is started, it will tracking the optimal initial firing angle. Consequently, the count values of T 1 , T 2 and T 3 were all reduced. Table 3 shows the initial firing angles selected using the proposed control algorithm.…”

“…First, a battery storage system (BESS) can be installed in parallel with the power substations [2]. This system can reduce the energy consumption by the braking resistor.…”

Optimized Sizing and Scheduling of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems for High-Speed Railway Traction Substations

“…Batteries have good performance in terms of high energy density and mature manufacturing process, whereas lifetime cycles and power density are limited [42]. By contrast, UC have advantages of high power density, fast response, lower maintenance cost and extremely long cycle life [8], while low energy density and quite high energy capacity cost are the main obstacles to the spread application of UC. HESS is proposed with the intention of combining the batteries and UC to obtain both high energy and power density, and thus has an obvious advantage over the single type of energy storage system, especially for the application of peak load shaving and regenerative braking power absorbing in the high-speed railway system.…”

Integration of Photovoltaic Plants and Supercapacitors in Tramway Power Systems

“…In the recent past, the scientific community has been paying growing attention to the different uses of these technologies in urban and suburban railway traction systems (streetcar, light rail transit, and mass rapid transit) [1,2]. In fact, it has been widely demonstrated that their use enables both the under sizing of the power supply plant in the project stage or a more intensive use of existing subsystems without major modifications (e.g., the repowering of electrical substations and the increase of the cross-sectional area of contact wires), and besides it definitely allows to improve the overall energy efficiency thanks to the recovery of the braking energy and its subsequent release in the starting phase of the traction motors.…”