Braking energy regeneration system of buses based on compressed air energy storage

Brake energy regeneration is an electrical current management technology that ensures intelligent generation of electric power by restricting production to the engine overrun phases and the application of the brakes. Compressed air energy storage is a technically feasible and economically attractive method for load management. This work proposed a brake energy regeneration system based on electric-controlled compressed air energy storage technology. In the proposed system, we designed a control strategy based on system capacity estimation and driver purpose identifying. The real road driving was adopted to test the system and the control strategy. The experimental results suggest that the brake energy regeneration system enables fuel economy increase of bus more than 10%. About the system initial cost, the return on investment time is about three years.