This study focuses on optimizing the operation of rotary railway-feeding converters. Since a large share of rotary converters can be expected to be in operation for decades to come in the railway power supply systems (RPSSs), it is important to make their operation as efficient as possible. The existing rotary converters may have unused capabilities particularly in load sharing, but also to some extent in reactive power compensation.
Load-sharing improvement can be done in two steps; (1) coarsely by unit commitment within a converter station, (2) fine-tuned by controlling the terminal voltage of the converter station on the railway-side. The proposed optimization models minimize RPSS losses, including losses in the converters. The models are implemented and solved in the GAMS environment.
The case studies are applied on Sweden-inspired RPSS designs and configurations, and the train load situations are varied. Ideas and experiences regarding improved computational efficiency for solving the problems are discussed.
