Energy storage devices, such as flywheel storages, can be used in railway systems, especially tramways, to save energy from being turned into heat in the braking resistor. This paper provides a quantitative analysis for the possible energy savings by using a flywheel energy storage system in a tramway. For this purpose a flywheel is modeled considering various internal losses. Based on the defined operating strategy, the power flow of the traction system is analyzed for a given driving cycle. The energy consumption of a tram with a flywheel system is compared to the consumption of a conventional tram without an energy storage device and a tram with a storage device based on supercaps. Finally, the influence of the grid feedin power limit on the energy savings is analyzed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.