Railway System Energy Management Optimization Demonstrated at Offline and Online Case Studies

This paper presents the two level optimization algorithms: a centralized day-ahead and decentralized minute-ahead algorithm for energy management in an integrated mainline railway system. All energy players, such as trains, infrastructure facilities, wayside storages, and distributed energy resources, are considered in the simulation. The algorithms are developed to demonstrate the railway energy management system architecture. This paper demonstrates the validity of the algorithms and analyzes the simulation results in offline and online real case studies. In the online case study, the developed system for minute ahead optimization and real-time operation was tested on the Malaga–Fuengirola line (Spanish railway) for a few hours. The optimization is done regarding three different objectives: cost optimization or energy consumption optimization or power demand optimization.