A Power Factor-Oriented Railway Power Flow Controller for Power Quality Improvement in Electrical Railway Power System

Focusing on the freight-train dominant electrical railway power system (ERPS) mixed with ac–dc and ac–dc–ac locomotives (its power factore[0.70,0.84]), this paper proposes a power factor-oriented railway power flow controller (RPFC) for the power quality improvement of ERPS. The comprehensive relationship of the primary power factor, converter capacity, and the two-phase load currents is built in this paper. Besides, as the main contribution of this paper, the optimal compensating strategy that suited the random fluctuated two-phase loads is analyzed and designed based on a real traction substation, for the purposes of satisfying the power quality standard, enhancing RPFC's control flexibility, and decreasing converter's capacity. Finally, both the simulation and the experiment are used to validate the proposed conceive.