Feasibility report on the usage of railway power lines
Feasibility report on the usage of railway power lines for the German energy revolution with the participation of the chair of Electric Railways at the TU Dresden
The Federal Grid Agency as a subordinated Agency of the Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology (BMWi) published the results of the end-2011 commissioned “Feasibility Report for Integration of Railway Power Line with National Power Line Infrastructure” in 2012. The report was developed with the participation of the chair of Electric Railways at the TU Dresden together with the institute of Power Supply and High Voltage Technology at the Leibnitz-University Hannover and the institute of German and International Mountain and Energy Law at the Technical University Clausthal.
The matter of the report was the currently also publically discussed question, whether and how the existing railway power lines of the German wide available 2AC 110 kV 16,7 Hz railway grid with an overall length of nearly 7,800 km can be used for the required new power lines of the German energy revolution.
The report was functionally divided in three parts. For the part 1, the LU Hannover was in charge with the technical feasibility regarding power line combination of railway power supply and national power supply. Part 2 had the subject decentralisation of the German railway power supply and was taken into responsibility by the chair of Electric Railways at the TU Dresden because of the specialisation. Part 3 had to deal with legal concerns and was located by the specialists of the TU Clausthal. The report was supported by the transmission system operators, the DB Energy GmbH and the Federal Railway Authority.
In the result of the report, which is also verbose covered in the newspaper and on television, there are developed profound and detailed statements on the technical and legal feasibility as well as the economic consequences of a railway power line use.
In the Federal Grid Agency press release states about the results from the feasibility report:
“The existing railway power lines are just with tight restrictions usable within the upcoming national power line grid extension …This result is particularly based on the technical barriers as well as the high costs in some parts… The optimistic ideas of this transportation option have to be corrected partly significant by the rating of the experts. …
‘The report provides an important contribution for evaluating the potential of the railway power lines for upcoming national power line extension. Wherever it is possibly, the railway power lines should be included into the analysis within the further spatial extension planning of the national power grid’, emphasises Jochen Homann, president of the Federal Grid Agency.“
The whole feasibility report is published – with the exception of some competition relevant data of the grid operators – on the Website of the Federal Grid Agency www.bundesnetzagentur.de
The cooperation of the three universities in Hanover, Dresden and Clausthal was despite the spatial and administrative separation excellent and it is a good example that different high specified fields of German universities can work interdisciplinary together on a scientific complex and socio-political current topic. The statements of the experts did contribute substantially to objectify the also in the media partly very emotional debate with solid professional arguments.
The short version of the press release as well as the expert report are here:
Press release and expert report or in PDF: Press release und Gutachten
Contakt:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arnd Stephan
TU Dresden
Fakultät Verkehrswissenschaften „Friedrich List“
Professur für Elektrische Bahnen