Quantification and reduction of power peaks in railway networks: A simulation-based approach

Abstract

Power peaks are an undesirable phenomenon which unavoidably occurs in railway operations due to the inharmonious movement of trains. Under severe delays, power peaks can reach extremely high values putting too much pressure into the power grid, even leading to a blackout. In this paper, a railway simulation tool is developed based on timetable and energy consumption data for the quantification of the power peaks in a railway network. It is verified how impunctuality issues during operation can lead to very high peak values of the overall power demand. Additionally, and in order to mitigate the power peaks, different operational measures are implemented to optimize the power demand profile of the railway network. This is performed following a two-fold optimization strategy which includes both shifting the departure times of trains and the limitation of their maximum traction power between two stations. The implemented simulation-based optimization shows great potential to reduce the power peaks, particularly by means of limiting the maximum traction power of the trains.