Optimal P2P based energy trading of flexible smart inter-city electric traction system and a wayside network: A case study in Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

In an open energy market, the peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading policy became more applicable. Therefore, while planning for new electrified systems, such a trading policy is taken into consideration. On the other hand, as the electrification of railway systems along with the use of electric vehicles serve several sustainable development goals, plans are studied for the electrification of the inter-city railway system in Alexandria, Egypt, in order to connect it with the high-speed inter-provincial electric railway system. In addition, other plans are studied for local production of electric vehicles. For this purpose, this paper presents a study regarding P2P based optimal energy management (EM) of a flexible smart railway substation taking into consideration multiple energy sources of the traction system and the wayside distribution network. The energy sources of the substation include captured regenerative braking energy (RBE), photovoltaic (PV) units and a multistory parking garage of electric vehicles (EVs). The wayside distribution network also contains several energy sources including distributed generation and multiple energy hubs (EHs) in addition to district distribution area with flexible loads. Optimal energy management is carried out including optimal demand side management of flexible loads and EHs. The optimization study takes into consideration several operational uncertainties arising from several components of the system. The simulation results show the feasibility of applying the proposed EM algorithm with an improvement of the energy economics of the system.