Energy-Management Method to Reduce the Capacity of Lithium-Ion Batteries in Hybrid-Voltage-Source Three-Level Inverter for DC-Electrified Railway Vehicles

The hybrid-voltage-source three-level inverter is a traction circuit system aimed at realizing energy savings with lithium-ion batteries for direct-current-electrified railway vehicles. However, this system has the limitation of being unable to freely control the power flow of the batteries owing to the pulse width modulation. However, because this system has batteries, energy management is required for the batteries. Therefore, it is necessary to propose an energy-management method that achieves the required energy-saving effect while considering the constraints of the battery power control. In this paper, a management method is proposed to control the power flow of the batteries by determining the pulse mode of the inverter and the modulation wave offset based on the state of the charge and inverter frequency. In a 0.75-kW class mini-model verification, the effectiveness of the proposed energy-management method is then confirmed based on the state of the charge, inverter frequency, offset, and battery power. Subsequently, we evaluate the energy-saving effect of this hybrid system using a numerical simulation while considering an actual railway vehicle. In addition, the optimal capacity of the batteries is investigated. As a result, the best energy-saving effect is obtained when two of the assumed batteries are connected in series and three in parallel, and the power consumption is reduced by approximately 21%.