Energy management strategy to optimise regenerative braking in a hybrid dual-mode locomotive

This study proposes an energy management strategy (EMS) for a dual-mode hybrid locomotive equipped with a fuel cell, supercapacitors, and batteries, and intermittent access to an electrified overhead catenary. It is inspired by the Ragone plot and does not consider information or predictions of future load consumption. It aims to reduce a cost function that considers the cost of hydrogen, the electricity consumed from the network, and the energy sources' degradation. The EMS focuses on maximising the energy recovered during braking. The study introduces a methodology to tune the EMS parameters. Two study cases are used to evaluate the EMS. In the evaluation driving profile, typical for a French freight train, the braking energy is around 12.8% of the total energy. With the proposed EMS, the energy recovered is around 99.8% of the total braking energy. A second EMS not oriented to reduce the energy in the braking resistor is also evaluated. The energy recovered with this strategy is around 91.5% of the total braking energy. The global energy reduction is around 1.1% compared with the second EMS and 12.8% without energy recovering. These results show a real opportunity to increase the energy recovered during braking.