Authors: D. Ovsyaniker, A. Mishchenko, A. Savostyanov
Magazine (bulletin) of International Metro Association «МETRO INFO International». – 2018 - №1. – P. 28-33
Power regeneration in metro technical systems
The present article is concerned with technical solutions on escalation of energy efficiency of metro traction equipment due to utilization of power regenerated by rolling stock. Nowadays, particular attention of experts and city authorities is paid to issues of increased power efficiency of city transport, and primarily, of power-consuming metro. There are several reasons for this:
- required reduction of air pollutant emissions while electric power generation, thus, making contribution into improvement of environmental conditions in the world;
- aiming for making the most of Earth's power resources;
- aiming for reducing the cost price of city rail transport operation.
Thereby, the issue of sustainable (more complete) utilization of kinetic energy released while trains breaking, becomes increasingly more urgent. This article highlights several ways of maximum utilization of trains breaking power via additional installation of inverters-regenerators of electric power accumulators.
In most cases the main part of kinetic energy, accumulated in moving train parts, turns into electric power while train breaking; a part of electric power is used the by on-board train consumers. As a rule, excessive breaking energy is dispersed on ballast resistors, but can go back into medium-voltage network, or can be accumulated in special storage devices (supercapacitors or lithium-polymer accumulators), in case of installation of appropriate equipment at the substation. In this case, only under off-nominal conditions, the part of breaking power will be dispersed on braking resistors as the warmth.
The article deals with special characteristics of three kinds of train breaking power using — dispersion on resistors, inverting into network and accumulation:
- braking resistors, installed on a rolling stock;
- thyristor and transistor inverters;
- storage devices made on the basis of supercapacitors and accumulators.
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