Cost-Reducing Optimization Strategies of Electrical Trains

Trains are spatio-temporally varying loads. The spatio-temporally varying nature and the regenerative capacity of the trains provide an excellent opportunity for purchasing and selling the same magnitude of power at different times and locations, according to the price of electricity, which also has spatio-temporal variations. This variation is the basis for two new mechanisms for minimizing the cost of electricity utilization in high-speed electrical trains being pursued in this thesis. In the first approach, unlike the traditional approach of minimizing the energy, we aim to minimize the weighted-cost of electrical energy since the cost of the latter varies with the spatio-temporal location of the train. In the second approach, we outline a transaction mechanism between an electrical train and a real-time electrical load such that the cost of electricity utilization by both may be reduced. Conventional approach to transaction is typically based on bulk and unidirectional power flow while this new approach extends it to distributed and bi-directional power flow.