Innovative Solutions to Increase Energy Efficiency in Railways

Topic Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, electrified railway networks are considered to be one of the most environmentally friendly transportation systems. Given the need for increased rail transportation for freight and passenger services, the efficiency of the electric traction system, from the power supply to the rolling stock, is of central concern. Innovative solutions are introduced in the electrification systems and the rolling stocks. This Special Issue focuses on the advances in various aspects: new power supply scenarios with active substations, renewable energy sources, superconducting devices, fixed and embedded energy storage systems, hybrid electric multiple units with battery storage and fuel cells, and SiC traction inverters.

Prof. Dr. Philippe Ladoux
Dr. Vítor Monteiro
Topic Editors

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Participating Journals

Journal Name	Impact Factor	CiteScore	Launched Year	First Decision (median)	APC
Electricity electricity	2.7	4.4	2020	25.8 Days	CHF 1200
Electronics electronics	2.9	7.0	2012	14.8 Days	CHF 2400
Energies energies	3.9	8.3	2008	16.7 Days	CHF 2600
Future Transportation futuretransp	2.5	3.4	2021	14.6 Days	CHF 1200

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All Electricity Electronics Energies Future Transportation

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22 pages, 715 KB  

Open AccessArticle

Technical and Economic Feasibility Analysis of a Traction Substation-Based Microgrid

by Adam Szeląg and Grzegorz Kluj

Electronics 2026, 15(8), 1665; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics15081665 - 16 Apr 2026

Viewed by 463

Abstract

This paper presents a technical and economic feasibility analysis of a microgrid based on an existing traction substation supplying a 3 kV DC railway network. The study is based on real 15-min electricity consumption measurements and applies an engineering-oriented methodology to assess the [...] Read more.

This paper presents a technical and economic feasibility analysis of a microgrid based on an existing traction substation supplying a 3 kV DC railway network. The study is based on real 15-min electricity consumption measurements and applies an engineering-oriented methodology to assess the integration of distributed energy resources, including wind turbines, photovoltaic generation, and a battery energy storage system. The analysis focuses on component sizing, land-use constraints, and investment efficiency under conservative and transparent assumptions. The results demonstrate that traction substation-based microgrids are technically feasible under realistic environmental and spatial conditions. The conducted variant analysis reveals a clear trade-off between the number of installed wind turbines and the required photovoltaic installation area, highlighting the importance of generation redundancy and source diversification for infrastructure-critical applications. The energy storage system is designed as a reliability-oriented backup component, ensuring continuity of supply during primary power outages rather than serving as an optimization or arbitrage asset. From an economic perspective, the obtained investment efficiency indicators indicate that the proposed microgrid configuration can achieve acceptable performance for capital-intensive infrastructure assets, particularly when supported by appropriate financing conditions and policy instruments. Overall, the study confirms that traction substation-based microgrids constitute a viable solution for enhancing energy supply diversification, resilience, and decarbonization of railway power systems, while providing a transparent framework for early-stage decision-making. Full article

(This article belongs to the Topic Innovative Solutions to Increase Energy Efficiency in Railways)

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