Energy saving techniques for the power feeding network of electric railways

Abstract

Electric railcars using current collection are generally more energy efficient than battery-powered cars in terms of charge/discharge losses in the batteries. However, in electric railway systems, high resistive losses in the feeding circuit can be observed, as well as low line receptivity for regenerative braking trains in the DC railways. Several new techniques are being developed to improve the situation, which will enable further reduction of energy lost in the feeding network. This work classifies the possible approaches and discusses the possibilities of the emerging techniques. © 2010 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.