Page 21 - Innovation in energy management: contribution of railways to sustainable mobility

R.7. Introducing the railway electric Smart Grid

Investment: Nature: Improvement:

Related to:
R.3 R.4 R.5 R.6 R.10

This type of network fosters the development that best combines the railway electrical
system and new digital techniques to implement a more efficient network, not only from
the point of view of electricity consumption but also of operation. In 2016 this challenge
was already specifically identified and, since then, progress has been made in this area
thanks to the completion of various projects such as In2Rail, In2Stempo and E-LOBSTER.

This new railway electricity network can be seen as a grouping of the rest of the
aforementioned technologies (reversible cells, storage systems, renewable energy
sources, etc.), forming nodes. Considering that others could be added (to have a greater
number of functionalities), in any case a control discipline must oversee execution and
regulation of the appropriate actions.

The challenge is therefore that the railway electricity network is transformed in the
coming years into an energy concentrator or energy HUB incorporating distributed
generation nodes (DER), nodes that efficiently use the regenerative braking energy of trains
(RBE), nodes of energy storage on land (ESS) and nodes associated with charging
infrastructures for electric vehicles (EV) among others (see diagram below).

To date, some railway administrators have developed different initiatives and/or
projects at the level of these nodes independently (reversible cell projects, RBE),
underlining the necessity to promote new projects that integrate them all together.

The train should be able to become a mobile node of the system and can be integrated
into the aforementioned HUB. Specifically, the connectivity of the train with the electrical
infrastructure is a challenge to be addressed. The advanced management of a fleet of
trains is making it possible to know the status of each vehicle, its consumption, and its
operating conditions. This information, processed by means of precise and detailed
algorithms, would make it possible to identify points for improvement and define new
energy optimisation criteria.

The evolution of current simulation techniques will enable knowledge of the
infrastructure for a given use, with the ability to adjust both the operation and the
configuration of the infrastructure based on joint energy efficiency. The individual
consumption of the vehicle may not be optimal while the collective consumption of the
system represents the optimum. The synchronisation of the tension of the Transmission
Line together with the circulation schedules and the instants of acceleration and braking
of the vehicle, will allow for the optimisation of the entire system.

Advanced connectivity allows the infrastructure to detect the knowledge and be able to
optimise the expected consumption of the rolling stock, while the vehicle can know the
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Position paper: Innovation in energy management: contribution of railways to sustainable mobility
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