SWITZERLAND: In what Siemens says is a world first, Swiss Federal Railways has awarded Siemens’ Smart Grid Division a SFr9·3m contract to design and supply mobile 15 MVAr reactive power compensation systems which can be deployed by rail.
These will be used to stabilise the traction voltage and improve power quality to ensure traction power in the event of a partial system failure.
The first two units are to be located at the south end of the Simplon Tunnel from the end of 2015, with a third at Neuhausen am Rheinfall. There is an SFr10m option for four more units.
The compensators will be housed in 40 ft high-cube containers containing gas-insulated medium-voltage switchgear, power converters, a cooling unit and protection and control technology. Auxiliary services can be powered with either 15 kV 16·7 Hz via the traction power supply or with 400 V 50 Hz via the national grid.
‘The mobile containers will give us the flexibility to provide additional reactive-power compensation and stabilise the network wherever that’s needed’, said Markus Siegenthaler, Project Manager at SBB Infrastructure.
