2004 Volume 45 Issue 2 Pages 53-58
How to stabilize power sources to minimize voltage drops, power load fluctuations, and regenerative power lapses has been a key problem area in DC feeding circuits. Energy storage media that use power efficiently and eradicate such problems have been attracting interest, with several energy storage applications, including batteries and flywheels, having already been investigated. A wide range of large-scale electric double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) quickly charged and discharged, offer durability, maintenance-free features, low pollution and high efficiency levels, have been developed. Our research compared batteries with EDLCs in terms of their ability to charge/discharge at DC 75V. For the latest study, we produced a prototype DC electrified railway energy storage system that consists of EDLCs, a diode bridge rectifier, a chopper system, and a pulse width modulated (PWM) converter, useful information being obtained from charge/discharge tests. This paper describes the characteristics and results of the energy storage system experiments.
