Sustainable Electric Railway System Integrated With Distributed Energy Resources: Optimal Operation and Smart Energy Management System

Abstract

Global concern about the energy crisis and its environmental impact has focused on sustainable alternatives. The electric railway system (ERS) is a major electrical energy consumer, contributing to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and CO₂ pollution. This study introduces railway energy management systems (REMSs) as a green solution to address these challenges. REMS not only mitigates environmental risks but also enables surplus electricity sales to the grid market. This research formulates an AC optimal power flow (AC-OPF) problem by the utilization of mixed integer linear programming (MILP) for optimization of the railway station electrical system operation cost. In this paper, renewable energy resources (RERs), energy storage systems (ESSs), and regenerative braking energy (RBE) are taken into account, as well as the electrical grid. Additionally, by considering the probabilistic and stochastic behaviors of RERs, ESSs, and RBE, using real-time data, significant cost reductions in the daily operations of smart railway stations are achieved. With the aid of MATLAB, the model is effectively solved, and the results provide compelling evidence of the suitability and remarkable effectiveness of the proposed model.