Page 33 - Innovation in energy management: contribution of railways to sustainable mobility

losses that the transformer that remains in service will have (and that must assume the
entire load associated with the substation) are lower than the no-load losses that are
avoided by disconnecting the other transformer. Thus, through the disconnection of a
transformer for a year, consumption (due to vacuum losses) of between 0.70 and 0.53
MWh/year has been avoided.

An operational topology that promotes the generation of electrical braking energy and its
use by other trains is another action that can be carried out.

R.19. Efficiently operate the Rolling Stock

Investment: Nature: Improvement:

Related to:

R.18

It is essential to continue promoting the development and application of efficient
operating strategies for rolling stock, to maximise the potential savings associated with
the specific challenges of the infrastructure and the material itself. As is well known, the
main energy saving strategy associated with vehicle operation is economical driving.

Some technological developments continue to focus on advising on manual driving as an
aid to reduce consumption. These are the driving assistance systems or DAS. These
systems receive a target time that they must meet according to the schedule and calculate
the driving that the train driver must carry out on the route. These systems must allow
recalculation in real time to be able to adapt in case of delay or change in the schedule.

On the other hand, there are the developments associated with the integration of this type
of strategies on the ATO/ATP systems. Bearing in mind that metropolitan services are a
reference in this type of development, the initiatives aimed at implementing these
techniques in the ERTMS interoperable system are of special importance, in interurban
or commuter lines.

In addition to driving, energy efficiency can be improved from centralised traffic control
and planning systems. Specifically, schedules can be designed according to criteria based
on service quality as well as efficiency. Energy savings in the design of schedules and their
online recalculation can be achieved through an efficient distribution of time margins
along the route (so that they can be used through economical driving), through the
synchronisation of train starts and stops nearby (to improve the use of regenerated
energy), or to reduce the power peaks demanded in the substation.

In a more operational way, railway operators can continue to reduce the energy
consumption of vehicles during parking, enhancing their automatic disconnection or
optimising energy consumption for pre-conditioning.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Position paper: Innovation in energy management: contribution of railways to sustainable mobility
32