Optimisation of a Catenary-Free Tramline Equipped with Stationary Energy Storage Systems

Journal article, 2020

Catenary-free trams powered by on-board supercapacitor systems require high charging power from tram stations along the line. Since a shared electric grid is suffering from power superimposition when several trams charge at the same time, we propose to install stationary energy storage systems (SESSs) for power supply network to downsize charging equipment and reduce operational cost of the electric grid. To evaluate the trade-off between component cost and operational cost, an optimisation problem, which integrates type selection, sizing, energy management and different installation configurations of the SESSs, is introduced and formulated in terms of an annual cost. Disciplined convex modelling is applied to obtain a computationally tractable solution for a case study on an existing line in China. Results show that the optimal solution may reduce tramline cost by 11.48%.