The innovative ENVILINE ERS is a wayside energy recuperation system, which returns the surplus braking energy back to the AC network, reducing the total energy consumption of a rail transportation system by up to 30 percent.
When decelerating or braking, a traction vehicle (train, tram or trolleybus) is feeding the braking energy back into the DC power network. If the braking energy is not used by other vehicles in the network, it must be dissipated by the braking resistors. Instead of dissipating the energy using onboard resistors, the ERS is able to recuperate the braking energy by feeding it back to the AC network or by feeding local auxiliary systems like air-conditioning, heating, ventilation, lighting etc. Thus the total energy consumption of a rail transportation system can be reduced by up to 30 percent.
Additional benefits:
The ERS can be configured to provide rectification boost (bidirectional operation of ERS) to augment existing rectifiers.