Electrical Simulation of Traction Subway System for Energy Recovery and Energy Saving Studies

In the last decades, the energy consumption is the center of several discussions about subway system efficiency due to the risingly cost of energy. Many rail operators have been installing systems to recover energy, including flywheel, supercapacitors and batteries, which can be boarded or stationary. Another way to save energy is the low-cost option of introducing changes in the train operation (e.g. in the trains scheduling, acceleration rate and maximum speed) at the expense of the reduction of the system efficiency by the point of view of the customer service. A simulator is proposed to obtain data to allow comparison between these two options: use energy recovering system or change train operation parameters.