Convertor for electric feeder and/or substation for recuperating the braking energy

• US 10,554,117 B2
• Filed: 01/14/2016
• Issued: 02/04/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 01/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Alstom Transport Technologies
• Original Assignee: Alstom Transport Technologies
• Inventors: Bou-Saada, Johnny, Sadoun, Jerome, Scottini, Jonathan
• Primary Examiner(s): Kuhfuss, Zachary L
• Application Number:
  US14/995,231
• Publication Number:
  US 20160211738A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,482 Days
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 7/14 for vehicles propelled by ac motors
• CPC Class Codes: B60L 9/18 fed from dc supply lines
• CPC Class Codes: B60M 3/06 Arrangements for consuming regenerative power
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 1/126 using passive filters
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 7/217 using semiconductor devices only
• CPC Class Codes: H02M 7/797 using semiconductor devices only

Abstract

The invention relates to an electric converter (30) for a substation feeding an electric grid and/or for recuperating the braking energy of rail vehicles traveling on a railroad track, the substation being connected to a feeder line able to supply a DC voltage to the rail vehicles traveling on the railroad track, the substation comprising an electricity distribution grid able to deliver a corresponding three-phase voltage with three phases, the converter (30) comprising a transformer (306) able to inspect the value of the three-phase voltage delivered by the electricity distribution grid, a filtering device (304) able to filter the three-phase voltage of the transformer (306), and an inverter (302) connected to the filter (304).

Claims

1. An electric converter for a substation for feeding an electric grid and/or recuperating braking energy from rail vehicles traveling on a railroad track, the substation being connected to a feeder line able to supply a DC voltage to the rail vehicles traveling on the railroad track, the substation comprising an electricity distribution grid able to deliver a corresponding three-phase voltage with three phases, the converter comprising:

a transformer able to inspect the value of the three-phase voltage delivered by the electricity distribution grid,

a filtering device able to filter each of the three-phase voltage from the transformer, the filtering device including three inputs for the three phases of the inverter and three corresponding outputs, the transformer being connected on one side to the outputs of the filtering device and on the other side to the distribution grid, the filtering device being a filter reducing the current harmonics that may be reinjected on the electricity distribution grid, the filtering device being an LC circuit, and

an inverter connected to the filtering device,

wherein the transformer includes each of the dipoles able to generate an inductance of the filtering device and wherein the electric converter further comprises a cooling circuit, the inductances and the transformer being cooled with the same cooling circuit.

2. The converter according to claim 1, wherein for each generated phase, the inverter includes, in series, two assemblies, each assembly including a diode and a transistor in parallel.

3. The converter according to claim 2, wherein each transistor is an insulated gate bipolar transistor.

4. A substation for feeding a grid and/or recuperating braking energy from rail vehicles traveling on a railroad track, the substation being connected to a feeder line able to supply a DC voltage to the rail vehicles traveling on the railroad track, the substation comprising:

an electricity distribution grid able to deliver a corresponding three-phase voltage with three phases,

a single converter according to claim 1.

5. A system for feeding an electric grid and/or for recuperating braking energy from rail vehicles, the system including a plurality of substations according to claim 4.

6. A system for feeding an electric grid and/or for recuperating the braking energy from rail vehicles according to claim 5:

the plurality of substations being spaced apart from one another by a distance greater than 100 meters, each substation is electrically connected to the feeder line at a connecting point and equipped with;

a sensor or an estimator of a voltage U_ssk at the connecting point,

a control module of the converter able to automatically switch the converter into a regeneration mode in which the converter continuously transfers electricity from the feeder line to the electricity distribution grid to recuperate the braking energy from the rail vehicles, once the measured or estimated voltage U_ssk is above a threshold U_C3k, such that each substation is associated with a respective braking energy recuperation zone Z_fk in which, irrespective of the position of the rail vehicle within that zone Z_fk, the substation S_k is capable of recuperating at least part of the braking energy of that rail vehicle,

a braking energy recuperation zone Z_fk being a segment [L_Gfk;

L_Dfk] of the feeder line centered around the point P_k and the boundaries L_Gfk, L_Dfk of which are spaced apart on either side of the point P_k by a distance F_k equal to (U_Cmax-U_C3mink)/(ρ

I_max), where;

U_Cmax is a maximum nonpermanent allowable voltage on the feeder line,

U_C3minkis the minimum value that can be assumed by the threshold U_c3kduring the operation of the substation,

ρ

is the linear resistance of the feeder line, and

I_max is the maximum allowable intensity for the current circulating on the feeder line, the value of the limit U_C3mink is such that the distance F_k is greater than or equal to D_k/2.

7. The system according to claim 6, wherein the substations are equidistant from one another.

8. The system according to claim 5, wherein the substations are equidistant from one another.

9. The converter according to claim 1, wherein the filtering device includes three inductances and three capacitors.

10. The converter according to claim 9, wherein a first terminal of the second capacitor is connected to a second terminal of the first capacitor, a first terminal of the first capacitor being connected to a first terminal of the third capacitor, a second terminal of the second capacitor being connected to a second terminal of the third capacitor.

11. The converter according to claim 9, wherein a first terminal of the first inductance is connected to a first terminal of the third capacitor, a second terminal of the first inductance being connected to the first input of the filtering device corresponding to the first phase;

a first terminal of the second inductance being connected to a second terminal of the first capacitor and to a first terminal of the second capacitor, a second terminal of the second inductance being connected to the second input of the filtering device corresponding to the second phase,

a first terminal of the third inductance being connected to a second terminal of the third capacitor, a second terminal of the third inductance being connected to the third input of the filtering device corresponding to the third phase.

12. The converter according to claim 11, wherein the first terminal of the first capacitor is connected to the first output of the filtering device, while the second terminal of the first capacitor is connected to the second output of the filtering device;

the first terminal of the second capacitor being connected to the second output of the filtering device, the second terminal of the second capacitor being connected to the third output;

the first terminal of the third capacitor being connected to the first output of the filtering device, the second terminal of the third capacitor being connected to the third output of the filtering device.

13. The converter according to claim 9, wherein the transformer has two primary windings and one secondary winding, each inductance being connected to the three three-phase connectors of each winding.

14. The converter according to claim 13, wherein the filtering device includes nine inductances and three capacitors;

for the first phase, the first inductance being connected to a first output of the secondary winding and the first output of the transformer, the second inductance being connected to the first output of the first primary winding and the first input of the transformer, the third inductance being connected to the first output of the first primary winding and a second terminal of the second capacitor;

for the second phase, the fourth inductance being connected to a second output of the secondary winding and a second output of the transformer, the fifth inductance being connected to a second output of the first primary winding and a second input of the transformer, the sixth inductance being connected to a second output of the first primary winding and a second terminal of the first capacitor;

for the third phase, the seventh inductance being connected to a third output of the secondary winding and a third output of the transformer, the eighth inductance being connected to a third output of the first primary winding and a third input of the transformer, the ninth inductance being connected to a third output of the first primary winding and a first terminal of the third capacitor.