SFCs to reduce number of grid connections for Lithuanian Railways
Lithuanian Railways (LTG) is electrifying its rail corridor from Vilnius to Klapeida, the principal port – over a distance of 377 km.
Image source; Hitachi Energy
Lithuania, Vilnius: Lithuanian Railways (LTG) is electrifying its rail corridor from Vilnius to Klapeida, the principal port – over a distance of 377 km.
Electrification of the corridor will replace polluting diesel-powered locomotives with lower-carbon high-speed electric trains. This will reduce CO2 emissions by 150,000 T a year and cut operating costs by 40 %, according to the Lithuanian government.
Rail electrification requires grid connections to link the corridor to the power grid, and the solution that will be used for that purpose in the project are Hitachi Energy’s static frequency converter (SFC) stations. The solution is to reduce the number of grid connections needed to power the rail corridor almost by half.
Hitachi Energy was selected by ELECNOR, the Spanish infrastructure, energy and telecommunications company, and its consortium partner Inabensa, which are responsible for the electrification of the entire project.
SFCs eliminate the voltage unbalance caused by feeding power from a three-phase grid into the rail network. This ensures compliance with the strict grid code regulations of the transmission system operator, thereby reducing risk. It also enables the network to be connected to a medium-voltage distribution grid, rather than a higher cost high-voltage transmission grid.
Source: Hitachi Energy
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