Increasing the Braking Energy Recuperation in Electric Transportation Grids Without Storage

Abstract

When the braking energy in electric transportation grids is not met by another vehicle's demand, it is either harvested by storage systems or wasted in braking resistors. This paper looks at three methods for increasing the amount of harvested braking energy without the use of expensive storage systems: decreasing the substation voltage, decreasing the catenary/rail resistance, and adding smart grid loads such as EV chargers. Compared to the baseline scenario of a presented case study, the first method allowed the recuperation of all the braking energy yet increased the line transmission losses. The second method presented a better performance in both types of losses (23 %), while the third method offered a 66 % reduction in losses in addition to offering more utilities from the same infrastructure. The final paper will go into further detail with a full-day simulation.