Impact of Superconducting Cables on a DC Railway Network

Ghazi Hajiri, Kévin Berger, Frederic Trillaud, Jean Lévêque and Hervé Caron
Additional contact information
Ghazi Hajiri: Université de Lorraine, GREEN, F-54000 Nancy, France
Kévin Berger: Université de Lorraine, GREEN, F-54000 Nancy, France
Frederic Trillaud: Instituto de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City 04350, Mexico
Jean Lévêque: Université de Lorraine, GREEN, F-54000 Nancy, France
Hervé Caron: Département de la Traction Électrique, SNCF Réseau, F-93418 La Plaine Saint-Denis, France

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-33

Abstract: The Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF) is facing a significant challenge to meet the growth in rail traffic while maintaining continuous service, particularly in densely populated areas such as Paris. To tackle this challenge, the SNCF has implemented several electrification projects. These projects aim to reduce line losses and decrease voltage drops on the railway network. Amongst the possible technological choices, high temperature superconductor (HTS) cables have been evaluated, since they offer greater energy density at lower electrical losses than conventional cables. This feature is advantageous in order to transmit more electrical energy at a lesser footprint than conventional cable, therefore avoiding costly modifications of the existing infrastructures. In the present work, the electromagnetic response of two HTS cables topologies, unipolar and bipolar, was analyzed, and their impact on a direct current (DC) railway network under load was assessed. A commercial finite element (FE) software, COMSOL Multiphysics, was used to carry out a detailed FE model that accounts for the non-linearity of the electrical resistivity ? ( J , B , ? ) of the superconducting cable. This FE model was coupled with a lumped-parameter circuit model of the railway network, which is particularly suited for transient simulations considering train motion. Based on a case study representing a portion of the Parisian railway network, it was found that the insertion of a superconducting cable can result in a reduction of electrical losses by 60% compared to conventional cable as well as an 8.6% reduction in the total electrical consumption of the traction network.

Keywords: co-simulation; DC power transmission; electromagnetic modeling; energy consumption; finite element modeling; railway electrification; superconducting cables (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: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/2/776/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/2/776/ (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:16:y:2023:i:2:p:776-:d:1030181

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 ().