Integrated procedure to design optimal hybrid renewable power plant for railways' traction power substation

The paper suggests a 3-steps methodology, integrated in a unique-procedure, to optimally design a hybrid RPP (Renewable Power Plant) to be installed in the available areas of railway's power plants. The procedure takes into account power profiles and time schedule of trains, traction line's features, sizing and siting of TPSSs (Traction Power Substations) and features of renewable sources as PV (Photovoltaic) and wind turbines for optimizing the siting of the RPP, considering the investment convenience. The optimal sizing of a hybrid power plant is based on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) taking into account the energy absorbed by TPSSs, the physical and geometric constraints and the operating and maintenance costs of RPP. The integrated procedure has been tested on a real case study regarding a new 3 kV DC railway located in the South of Italy. The main results show that a hybrid RPP with 4980 PV panels and 3 wind turbines installed in a TPSS area, adopting a capital cost of 645,000 <euro>/MW for PV panels and 3000 <euro>/kW for wind farms, ensures an annual revenue of 227,439 <euro>, with a total investment of 897,400 <euro>. Results show that the available areas in TPSS should be the target of relevant investments to support a new sustainable and green power traction supply system.