A study on super capacitor wayside connection for energy recuperation in electric rail systems

A key solution to reduce energy consumption of electric rail systems is via reusing the energy regenerated during vehicle braking. One way to reuse this energy is by storing it in a wayside energy storage system, and reusing it when needed. Generally, there are two common ways to connect energy storage systems: direct connection (passive) and connection through a bidirectional converter (active). The purpose of this paper is to compare the performance of wayside energy storage systems with passive and active connection to the electric rail system for energy recuperation. In this study, the focus has been on super capacitor as the energy storage medium, since it is a rapidly growing technology that is being deployed in different electric rail systems all around the word.