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Re: Where will Caltrain get the electricty???? Ditto HSR
Author: Max Wyss
Date: 02-25-2017 - 16:18
A very rough guesstimate, which may be considerably off…
We assume that a KISS is rated at 6MW. We also assume that it uses that power at 20 percent of the time when running, and 0.5 MW the other 80 percent. Regenerative braking is very powerful, and it can feed one third of the maximum power consumed back to the grid. The energy consumed when stabled may be in the 8 kW range, and can be neglected in the following calculations.
We assume that the base schedule is a train every 30 minutes, and peak schedule is a train every 10 minutes. Because of the powerful trains and optimized station stops, the trip from San Francisco to San Jose can be done in 55 minutes. That means, we need 4 trains for the base schedule plus 8 trains for the peak schedule. A base schedule train runs for 20 hours, and a peak schedule train runs for 8 hours per day.
For a base schedule train, we have therefore 4 hours at 6 MW and 16 hours at 0.5 MW, minus 2 MW regenerative braking, therefore 30 MWh per train.
For a peak schedule train, we have 1.5 hours at 6 MW an 6 hours at 0.5 MW, minus 0.5 MW regenerative braking, therefore 11.5 MWh per train.
Summing up, we have 4 base schedule trains, consuming 120 MWh per day, and we have 8 peak schedule trains consuming 92 MWh per day.
Adding that up gives around 220 MWh per day.
For the power needs, we also have to look at the amount needed to be available at a given time. I guesstimate this to be in the 40 MW range.
Now, what is 40 MW? That's some 3000 households, or 1500 households with a charging station for an electric car, or 300 bakeries, or…
In other words, that would not be that much additional energy needed.
Now, if it were really critical, one could also think different, and team up with some heavy industry in need of process steam. Instead of simply produce steam, one could let that steam run through a steam turbine. Or, one could set up a garbage burning plant which creates steam for a steam turbine. Or just build a small gas turbine power plant (actually, that might be difficult, because there are no such small power plant gas turbines on the market).
So, IMHO, getting sufficient power is not such a big deal.
We assume that a KISS is rated at 6MW. We also assume that it uses that power at 20 percent of the time when running, and 0.5 MW the other 80 percent. Regenerative braking is very powerful, and it can feed one third of the maximum power consumed back to the grid. The energy consumed when stabled may be in the 8 kW range, and can be neglected in the following calculations.
We assume that the base schedule is a train every 30 minutes, and peak schedule is a train every 10 minutes. Because of the powerful trains and optimized station stops, the trip from San Francisco to San Jose can be done in 55 minutes. That means, we need 4 trains for the base schedule plus 8 trains for the peak schedule. A base schedule train runs for 20 hours, and a peak schedule train runs for 8 hours per day.
For a base schedule train, we have therefore 4 hours at 6 MW and 16 hours at 0.5 MW, minus 2 MW regenerative braking, therefore 30 MWh per train.
For a peak schedule train, we have 1.5 hours at 6 MW an 6 hours at 0.5 MW, minus 0.5 MW regenerative braking, therefore 11.5 MWh per train.
Summing up, we have 4 base schedule trains, consuming 120 MWh per day, and we have 8 peak schedule trains consuming 92 MWh per day.
Adding that up gives around 220 MWh per day.
For the power needs, we also have to look at the amount needed to be available at a given time. I guesstimate this to be in the 40 MW range.
Now, what is 40 MW? That's some 3000 households, or 1500 households with a charging station for an electric car, or 300 bakeries, or…
In other words, that would not be that much additional energy needed.
Now, if it were really critical, one could also think different, and team up with some heavy industry in need of process steam. Instead of simply produce steam, one could let that steam run through a steam turbine. Or, one could set up a garbage burning plant which creates steam for a steam turbine. Or just build a small gas turbine power plant (actually, that might be difficult, because there are no such small power plant gas turbines on the market).
So, IMHO, getting sufficient power is not such a big deal.
