Reflections of Muhammad Jaseel K A
In our serie "What does the future bring?" our ESR's are sharing their perspective. This serie is linked to the Horizon Magazine article published on Monday, March 13 2024 which focusses on EU support for Ukrainian researchers including ETUT project regarding "Building bridges between Ukrainian and EU researchers" featuring Regis Nibaruta, Ivan Struzhko, Vladimir Havryliuk, Gert Rietveld and Frank Leferink. The full article can be found https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/building-bridges-between-ukrainian-and-eu-researchers By Andrew Dunne.
Via Cordis, the project is described as'the ETUT project will model, design, estimate, quantify and monitor economic measures for a reliable, safe, effective and greener electrical transport system. The training programme will include innovative methods to be applied in electric transport... it may have far reaching consequences and may even see the railway network supporting or replacing local electrical utility networks' Can you explain the problem specifically? In simple terms, what exactly is the electrical engineering challenge in terms of future electric transport systems and what's the link with local electrical utility networks too?
ETUT project mainly focuses on the designing, validate and monitor the issues in the Electrical Transport especially railway transportation and Ships. These 2 are high power applications which are the range of Megawatts. Main electrical engineering challenges in these areas are the components used in the converters and devices surrounding it. Previously used devices caused high harmonics and consumed huge areas. In the case of DC trains, it is mainly used urban areas for metros, trams, and sub urban rails. These areas are high densely populated areas and spaces will be expensive. So many studies show the rapid increase in the urban area which implies the requirement of extension or implementation of light metros and metros. So, Electrical engineering challenges includes the size and power density of converters using and the utilization of regenerative energy from trains which can be fed back to the grid thus creating railway grid acting as smart grid.
When we spoke you described these two areas of electrical engineering where the main focus was - electromagnetic compatibility and power electronics. Can you give me examples of the kind of devices that might benefit from improvements to both and can you explain the link with these two areas and future electric transport systems?
As mentioned above, changing from previously used devices to high frequency devices can produce electromagnetic interference with the components surrounded to these converters. Sensors and other automatic devices which are designed for the previous converters can be interfered by the new switching devices. So, these automatic devices cannot be worked properly with the interferences which even can harm the converters and the complete control systems. As you create new solutions, there will be another problem. The issues created from the power electronics will be solved by the EMC engineers. In this manner, these 2 areas are linked with the future electrical transports.
Are there any examples of really applied research which you are currently conducting which relates to electric transport systems which we can talk about? Can you explain what you are working on - in an applied sense - with whom, and how?
I am working on the traction supply system used in DC railways. As I told before, these railways can be commonly seen in the urban areas. Majority of the metros, trams are using these systems for their electrification. Since the utility grid is AC, we need a rectifier/converter to convert to DC. Old technique is using normal devices such as diodes or thyristors which creates huge harmonics to the utility grid and are unidirectional. Use of switching devices which has bidirectional capability will reduce the harmonics as well as we can completely utilise the regenerative energy when the train brakes.
What is the long-term hope with this work? From a research point of view, what are YOUR long-term motivations for this all is and what are the impacts he envisages in the future (i.e. who does he see will benefit from this research in the future, and how?).
Trends shows that the people are moving to rural area for their better life standards. Main thing almost all the people depend on is the public transportations like metros and trams for saving time and their comfort. Reducing the size itself can help the extensions of these transportations to more areas by reducing the investment in the area. So, in my perspective, from this research, almost all the common people will be getting benefit.
Could I get a reflection from you on the importance of developing future electric transport systems in view of climate change and emission reduction targets? Why is this issue you're tackling so important from an environmental perspective?
As I am planning to incorporate energy storage system with the converter, It can help to utilize renewable energy to the railway grid and the excess back to the grid at non-peak hours. Europe’s energy crisis showed us how sufficient it is to move to renewable energy as much as possible to reduce the Co2 emission. Utilization of regenerative energy itself can reduce the consumption of energy by railways. These all shows the ideas of reduction of energy by railways which can be the most used public transport in the future in urban areas which easily shows the importance of issues we are tackling.