Technical Report No.1359

No. 1359

Application of Energy Storage Technologies to Railway Electrification Systems

Investigating R&D Committee on Application of Energy Storage Technologies to Railway Electrification Systems

Keyword :

electric railway, energy storage, energy saving, regenerative braking

This technical report was edited by the investigation committee aiming at investigating the current and future trends, problems and solutions in applying the Energy Storage System (ESS) to electric railways. Since the on-board energy storage technologies were already reported in the previous report No. 1307, this report deals with the application of stationary energy storage technologies.
Although railway is essentially the energy-saving transportation, there are social requirements to further reduction of energy consumption. Recent regenerative braking technology causes the regenerative failure problem in DC electrification systems, whereas catenary voltage fluctuation has been a problem. The stationary ESS is expected to realize prevention of regenerative failure, reduction of consumed energy, voltage regulation and substituting substations. Due to recent development of energy storage technologies, many applications can be found today. This report covers theoretical and practical developments from energy storage devices such as secondary batteries, capacitors and flywheels to systems such as design and control strategies. It is also mentioned to compare among some other countermeasures such as tie feeding and regenerative inverters that have similar objectives of installations. Furthermore, expectation of the future of power supply system for electric railways is finally stated.