The third longest railway system in the world could be on the verge of an energy storage makeover. That would be Russian Railways, which sprawls over 85.5 thousand kilometers. A little over half that length is electrified, and if all goes well with a new R&D project, the little could turn into a lot.
That’s not necessarily a gigantic win for climate action, considering that Russia hasn’t exactly been leading the vanguard on renewable energy. However, more and better railway electrification at least opens the door for more renewables, so let’s take a closer look and see what’s going on.
The new energy storage project is a joint venture between Russian Railways (RZhD) and the aggressively renewable energy company Enel Group.
As described by Enel, the partnership will focus on a first-of-its-kind use for energy storage in railway systems. The aim is to develop a relatively low cost strategy for improving system operations without getting into more expensive grid upgrades.
So, what does this mean? Something exotic, like flow batteries? Power-to-gas (aka hydrogen)? How about the concentrating solar + hydrogen combo?
What Kind Of Energy Storage?
So many questions! For an answer CleanTechnica reached out to Enel, which provided this backgrounder (breaks added for readability):
The partnership will start off with a testing phase, which will run for up to three months and is expected to begin by the end of the year, involving the installation of a single battery in RZhD’s laboratory where the technology can perform in a controlled environment.
The lithium batteries, with a minimum capacity of 10 MWh, can be activated automatically through Enel X’s software during times of peak demand with the aim to help respond to the growing energy demand of railway systems whose faster, more powerful and larger trains could be slowed in some instances to avoid putting strain on power grids.
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