Renewable Energy Integration in Intelligent Railway of China: Configurations, Applications and Issues

Chinaâ™s railway is experiencing a restructuring from taking fossil fuels as leading resources to electrical energy with renewable energy sources (RESs). As a major consumer of energy, the railway system with RESs integration in China is discussed in this paper, and the relevant applications have been summarized and analyzed. At the same time, the development situations have not yet reached the expected target at present, and China is selecting the route for technical, investment, managerial, market and incentive policy approaches to exploit RESs potential for intelligent railway applications. Furthermore, the next-generation intelligent electrified railway with RESs is proposed and investigated, and the relevant core technologies, systems and incentive policies are summarized and elaborated. Referring to advanced experiences from other countries, the characteristics and objectives of railway energy management system based RESs are also obtained. Based on high-proportion of RESs integration, a win-win situation for railway system and RESs is expected in both economy and environment in China in the future.