A consortium promoted by the Catalonia Competitiveness Agency, an agency set up by the Catalan Government to make Catalan enterprise more competitive, is developing a system that will harness the energy of braking trains to use it for the lighting and air conditioning of train stations and also in charging points for electric cars.
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(15/02/2013)
The consortium is led by Enertika of the Promaut Group. Alstom, Cinergia, Endesa, Barcelona Tram, Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat, Barcelona Digital Technology Centre and the Energy Research Institute of Catalonia are also members of the consortium.
The project, known as Charge & Ride, has a budget of 1.2 million euros and is co-financed by the Catalan Government’s Ministry of Enterprise and Labour and the European Union via the European Regional Development Fund.
The aim of the Charge & Ride project is to use the energy of braking trains that is returned to the catenary for lighting and air conditioning in the train stations and for electric vehicles’ charging points, which will allow energy savings of up to 50%. The project seeks to manage this energy through a smart microgrid located at the train station.
It is expected that the energy savings from the new management system could rise to 15% of the current use of the stations. Energy recovery and renewable energy generation systems could increase those savings to 50%, depending on variables like the track layout or train operation mode.
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