Survey of power electronics and electric machine application for on-site railway power system in Japan to realize eco-friendly transportation

In this paper, a survey of novel applications of power electronics and electric machine technology for on-site railway power supply system during the last decade in Japan to realize environmentally friendly transportation is conducted. The applications for high speed railway transportation called Shinkansen are described in Chapter 2 and for conventional railway are in Chapter 3. Not only the technologies which have been put into practical use but also the technologies which are just proposed and tested are introduced. The railway transportation in Japan has already realized CO2 emission index about 19g-CO2/person-km while the index of car is about 168g-CO2/person-km. Electrification is, as a matter of course, key technology to realize such a eco-friendly transportation and its system progresses day by day applying power electronics and electrical machine technologies. The continuing effort of railway companies and manufacturers in Japan to make the system more reliable and more ecological will be grasped in this paper.