Assessment of the Worthwhileness of Efficient Driving in Railway Systems with High-Receptivity Power Supplies

Alejandro Cunillera, Adrián Fernández-Rodríguez, Asunción P. Cucala, Antonio Fernández-Cardador and Maria Carmen Falvo
Additional contact information
Alejandro Cunillera: Institute for Research in Technology, ICAI School of Engineering, Comillas Pontifical University, 23 Alberto Aguilera Street, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Adrián Fernández-Rodríguez: Institute for Research in Technology, ICAI School of Engineering, Comillas Pontifical University, 23 Alberto Aguilera Street, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Asunción P. Cucala: Institute for Research in Technology, ICAI School of Engineering, Comillas Pontifical University, 23 Alberto Aguilera Street, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Antonio Fernández-Cardador: Institute for Research in Technology, ICAI School of Engineering, Comillas Pontifical University, 23 Alberto Aguilera Street, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Maria Carmen Falvo: DIAEE—Electrical Engineering, University of Rome Sapienza, via delle Sette Sale 12b, 00184 Rome, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-24

Abstract: Eco-driving is one of the most important strategies for significantly reducing the energy consumption of railways with low investments. It consists of designing a way of driving a train to fulfil a target running time, consuming the minimum amount of energy. Most eco-driving energy savings come from the substitution of some braking periods with coasting periods. Nowadays, modern trains can use regenerative braking to recover the kinetic energy during deceleration phases. Therefore, if the receptivity of the railway system to regenerate energy is high, a question arises: is it worth designing eco-driving speed profiles? This paper assesses the energy benefits that eco-driving can provide in different scenarios to answer this question. Eco-driving is obtained by means of a multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm, combined with a detailed train simulator, to obtain realistic results. Eco-driving speed profiles are compared with a standard driving that performs the same running time. Real data from Spanish high-speed lines have been used to analyze the results in two case studies. Stretches fed by 1 × 25 kV and 2 × 25 kV AC power supply systems have been considered, as they present high receptivity to regenerate energy. Furthermore, the variations of the two most important factors that affect the regenerative energy usage have been studied: train motors efficiency ratio and catenary resistance. Results indicate that the greater the catenary resistance, the more advantageous eco-driving is. Similarly, the lower the motor efficiency, the greater the energy savings provided by efficient driving. Despite the differences observed in energy savings, the main conclusion is that eco-driving always provides significant energy savings, even in the case of the most receptive power supply network. Therefore, this paper has demonstrated that efforts in improving regenerated energy usage must not neglect the role of eco-driving in railway efficiency.

Keywords: railway transport; eco-driving; energy efficiency; optimization algorithm; power systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1836/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/7/1836/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:7:p:1836-:d:343771

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().