Design of Hybrid Solar Energy System for The Application of Train Locomotive Power Source for The AALRT And Ethio-Djibouti Routs
Creators: name: Shimels, Kebede
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2015

description: Revolutionary changes have been taken place in the life of the mankind since human beings acquired the capability of walking fast. Now a days rail transport become a cheap means of transportation system to any class of people and goods. The train uses a diesel or electrical energy for its propulsion based on its design but due to the raise of fuel price and environmental pollution factor, the modern train uses an electrical energy which is finally converted in to mechanical support for the propulsion. The electrical energy is generated from different form of energy sources among the various forms of energy, solar energy is the best form to use in the present situation due to its, abundablity, environmental friendly and sustainability. In this study, the applications of solar energy to railway locomotive power propulsion system, using photovoltaic solar panels is analyzed and develop a grid connected system with a storage battery to store excess energy for emergency and night time, the rest excess generated energy is send back to the grid through the return line which is already build up by Ethiopian Rail way corporation power system directly through the line and as a form of regenerative energy during brake. The research mainly focuses on the conversion, the amount of electrical energy produced from the sun with the pre defined solar panel and its application for the railway propulsion system as a supplemental energy source for the electrical and diesel traction system for the selected newly build up Ethiopian rail way car and routs by maximize the solar source and minimizing the others. Therefore the different literatures was asses, important data was collected from different rail way companies and national meteorology agency and other sources, the amount of energy produced is mathematically calculated, the data which is collected was computed by using a Microsoft excel and Mathlab, the hybrid energy system layout and a physical model of a train car could be developed using a Microsoft Visio and CATIA software respectively. In this research, the well known Angstrom correlation, which used sunshine hour duration for the selected station through the Ethio-Djibouti railway rout, was used to compute the daily radiation and energy computation from a 3 to 5 years collected data. The result shows the minimum and maximum radiation distribution through the rout is 4.37kw/m2 /day during August at Addis Ababa and 7.2kw/m2 /day at Diredawa during May respectively. In general, Ethiopia has an average radiation of 5.87ke/m2/day, which indicates a great potential to generate electric power from the sun. Based on the technical proposal of the ERC, Box type, YZ25G and DFN7G and AALRT of train car had been selected for the installation of solar panels at the top roof surface area which is varying based on the number and size of the train car. For all selected trains a total number of 2011 panels with a total 30 years life cost of 56,764,325birr. The generated energy may cover 4.455 to 356.9% of required energy based on the sunshine hour duration, types of car and configuration, therefore the excess energy shall be sent to the main grid for other purposes to reduce the wastage of it. Based on the minimum energy production and maximum configuration the cost return time may be 12 years. The research generally shows the possibility of application of solar energy through the selected route and the best solution for sustainable energy supply and for the overall economy development in the country