Improving energy efficiency in public transport: Stationary supercapacitor based Energy Storage Systems for a metro network

This article will assess the installation of stationary super capacitor based energy storage systems (ESS) along a metro line for energy savings purposes. The influence of the ESS size and distribution along the line will be studied taking into account different traffic conditions.The ESSs will be configured with regards to energy content, voltage variation, maximum current and power losses. To carry out the study, an 'effect-cause' or 'backwards looking' model of the light rail vehicles and the electric network has been developed in Matlab/Simulink. A power flow controller to handle the energy flow in function of the network voltage and ESS state of charge will be proposed.