Abstract
A reliable transportation system is essential for the development of a community. Especially in urban transportation, rail transportation is a faster, more comfortable way to travel for the commuters. These benefits can be valued further when the rail transportation system is with zero emissions. Electric trains can be considered a zero-emission transportation method. However, a rail transportation system operates with net-zero emissions when electricity is generated from zero-emission-based sources. Photovoltaic systems have already been integrated into railway stations and spare land owned by railways to achieve net-zero emissions. Furthermore, medium-voltage DC network and microgrid concepts have been proposed to incorporate more renewable energy sources into railway electrification systems. However, the energy generated from those systems is not enough to realise net-zero emissions, as the power requirements of an urban railway electrification system are high. Accordingly, this article investigates the possibility of implementing a photovoltaic system along the railway tracks to meet the energy demands of an urban railway electrification system so that net-zero emissions can be achieved. Other significant advantages of the proposed photovoltaic system are lower feeder losses due to distributed photovoltaic systems integrated into the railway electrification system, lower conversion losses due to the direct integration of the photovoltaic system into the railway electrification system, and the nonrequirement of additional space to install the photovoltaic system. In this paper, a photovoltaic system capacity sizing algorithm is proposed and presented by considering a railway electrification system, the daily schedule of trains, and historical photovoltaic weather data. This proposed photovoltaic system capacity sizing algorithm was evaluated considering a section of the urban railway network of Sri Lanka and a three-year, 2017-2020, photovoltaic weather data. The results indicated that the potential for photovoltaic generation by installing photovoltaic systems along a railway track is much higher than the requirement, and it is possible to meet the required train scheduling options with proper sizing. Furthermore, in the three-year analysis, it is possible to achieve 90% of the energy required for the railway electrification system with effective train scheduling methods.
Highlights
A reliable transportation network is essential for the development of a country
The total power requirement of the railway electrification system at a given instant is represented by Equation (5), where Pi is the power consumed by the ith train at the time “t” and the number of trains operating on the system is “n.” The total energy requirement for the period considered from t1 to t2 is given by Equation (6)
This paper investigates the feasibility of using photovoltaic systems to operate an electric train network for an urban railway network to achieve zero emissions
Summary
A reliable transportation network is essential for the development of a country. Existing transportation methods include public vehicles such as buses; personal vehicles such as cars, vans, and bikes; and rail transportation. Renewable energy sources are considered the alternative to fossil fuel-based electricity generation. Investigations of future renewable energy railway electrification systems are conducted in microgrids and mediumvoltage DC (MVDC) networks. The authors in [20] have presented the ability to use the MVDC grid network with renewable energy (wind and solar) and battery storage. The authors in [25] present an MVDC structure that can integrate renewable energy It is clear from the literature review that photovoltaic integration into railway electrification systems is limited, and investigations are conducted to find suitable technologies. This article investigates the possibility of implementing a photovoltaic system along a railway track to produce the required energy to operate electric trains in an urban railway network to achieve net-zero emissions. The methodology is verified considering an urban railway network in Sri Lanka and weather data for three years in the region
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