By Philippe Ladoux, Joseph Fabre,

and Hervé Caron

Power-Quality
Improvement in ac
Railway Substations
The concept of chopper-controlled impedance.

he 25-kV/50-Hz ac single-phase supply is

T
a widely used railway system in France with a
length of 9,698 km. Overhead lines are sup-
plied by substations drawing power from two
phases of a three-phase utility. They behave
as nonlinear and time-varying loads and represent one of the
most important sources of voltage unbalance for the electric-
ity-transmission network. In the case of weak networks, rail-
way operators are required to install compensation systems
in substations to satisfy utility regulations and to avoid pen-
alties regarding voltage unbalance and reactive power con-
sumption. The limits are established by the energy provider
with a view to guaranteeing an acceptable power quality to
other customers.
In three-phase networks, the most widely used solutions are
the classical static var (volt ampere reactive) compensators
(SVCs), based on thyristor-controlled reactors (TCRs), and the
static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) based on voltage-
source inverters (VSIs). The TCR allows the variation of funda-
mental lagging current by phase control, counterbalancing large
leading currents from associated fixed capacitors and allowing
continuous compensation of the lagging line. However, this
solution generates a high level of harmonics and requires oner-
ous LC filters. On the other hand, VSIs offer several advantages
over thyristor-based solutions in terms of compensation
dynamics and reduced harmonic distortion. For the last ten

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6 I EEE E l e c t r i f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014 2325-5987/14©2014IEEE

years, although it requires bulky capacitors on the dc bus, the source and the load without additional storage elements, but
VSI approach has been widely used for avoiding system the input and output frequencies are closely related. Never-
unbalance. However, in high-power applications, the semi- theless, passive ­filters are always required to filter out the
conductor losses bring forth significant costs both in terms high-­frequency harmonics introduced at the input and out-
of active energy and cooling system maintenance, which put sides by the converter switching operation.
must be taken into consideration by the railway operator. Among the ac/ac direct converters, cycloconverters
The concept of the chopper-controlled impedance (CCI), and matrix converters are distinguished by their ability to
presented in this article, is based on series or parallel associ- adjust the output frequency and voltage of a specific ac
ations of ac choppers using high-­frequency pulsewidth mod- input voltage source. They also provide bidirectional pow-
ulation (PWM) to vary reactances at the network frequency. er-transfer capabilities, allowing the use of active loads
This approach is a low-power-loss solution and requires a (e.g., motors in regenerative mode). On the other hand,
low volume of reactive elements, a fact that makes this solu- the ac chopper topology, which is similar to the well-
tion very attractive in high-power, single-phase systems known dc chopper, provides direct ac/ac conversion
such as railway networks. between two ac sources at the same fundamental fre-
quency (Figure 1). The ac chopper may be considered as
Chopper-Controlled Impedance an autotransformer whose turns-ratio can be electroni-
Various converter topologies can be applied to provide ac/ac cally controlled. Nevertheless, although it can provide
conversion. Direct converters provide a link between the instantaneous bidirectional power transfer, it allows
power flow in one direction only, according to the type of
load. AC choppers are normally designed to transfer
power between a fixed ac voltage source (e.g., the utility
grid) and a passive ac load. The load voltage [i.e., its root-
mean-square (RMS) value] can be adjusted via the duty
cycle a to control the power flow, but the power exchange
(either active or reactive) is determined purely by the load
type (resistive, capacitive, or inductive).
The ideal waveforms are illustrated in Figure 2 (sinusoi-
dal input voltage and sinusoidal output current). In this
example, the waveforms are given for the case of a 90°
leading current.
It can be easily demonstrated that the RMS value of
the output voltage fundamental V2 depends on the input
voltage RMS value V1 and can be adjusted with the duty
cycle a:

V2 = aV1 .(1)

Likewise, the relationship between current RMS values

is given by

I 1 = aI 2 .(2)

By considering the ideal waveforms, it is clear that the

ac chopper topology requires input and output filtering
elements. In any case, capacitor C F and inductor L F will be
designed to filter out the switching frequency from i 1 and
v 2 . Thus, as shown in Figure 3, the ac chopper can be used
as a step-down or a step-up converter, depending on the
connection of the network and the load. Assuming a suffi-
ciently high switching frequency fsw, the filtering
elements L F and C F can be chosen to have a negligible

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4 7

 influence at the network frequency. Thus, in terms of fun- V Z
Z in . I in . out , (3)
damental RMS values and relationships of input and in a2
­output (1) and (2), the structures behave as variable imped- V
Z in . I in . Z out a 2 . (4)
ances controlled by the duty cycle a. The expressions for in

input impedance for step-down and step-up configura-

tions are given by (3) and (4), respectively. For example, if impedance Z out is capacitive at the grid
frequency, then the converters act as variable capacitors.
Thus, a reactive power compensator can be implemented
using the controlled impedance concept. The supplied
i1 i2
reactive power can be expressed as (5) for step-down
ac mode and (6) for step-up mode

v1 v2
V 2
Q = Z in a 2, (5)
ac out

Vin2
α Q= . (6)
a 2 Z out

Figure 1. The principle of direct ac/ac conversion.

Application of the Controlled Impedance
Concept to Reactive Power Compensation
Currently, most of the main-line traffic is from locomotives
v1 equipped with thyristor rectifiers. That is why (as traffic and
load increase) reactive power compensation is required to
i1 reduce reactive power and to keep the voltage from sagging.
Basic power-factor correction is realized by fixed capacitors.
The problem of such configurations is that when the over-
v2 head lines operate at no load, the voltage will rise but may
not exceed the 29-kV standard limit. If an increase of com-
i2 pensation is required, then a variable reactive power com-
pensator must be added to the fixed-capacitor banks.
Figure 2. The typical ac chopper current and voltage waveforms for Today, French National Railways [Société Nationale des
duty cycle a = 0.5. Chemins de fer Français (SNCF)] use some lines equipped

iin i1 i2 = iout LF

ac
Ln ic
VL
Vin = V1 V2 Vout Zout
Vn CF
ac
Load
α
Network
(a)

iout i1 i2 = iin LF Ln

ac
ic VL
Zout V2 Vn
Vout = V1 Vin

ac
Load
α
Network
(b)

Figure 3. The CCI with buck or boost ac/ac converter: (a) the step-down configuration and (b) the step-up configuration.

8 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

with thyristor-based SVCs. However, the TCR draws a nonsi-
nusoidal current, and in single-phase systems, these have a Overhead Line
high level of third harmonic (up to 34% of the fundamental). iLoad
L2 L1 (Trains)
As a result, this topology requires a bulky LC shunt filter Vline
c2 c1
tuned to the third harmonic. To avoid this drawback, a new
60-MVA
structure, based on CCIs was proposed. The case study is a Substation Fixed Rails
60-MVA substation close to Paris. The substation is phase-to- 225-kV Transformer Compensation
phase connected to a 225-kV three-phase transmission line. Transmission
Line
The initial circuit, presented in Figure 4, includes two fixed com-
pensation banks with antiharmonic inductors (L 1 and L 2) . Figure 4. A 25-kV, 50-Hz ac railway line power supply.

Overhead Line

L1 L2
Already-Existing
Compensation Banks
C1 C2

LF1 LF2
iin1 iout1.1 iin2 iout2.1
ac ac
Co1 Co2
Vin1.1 Vout1.1 Vin2.1 Vout2.1
L3 ac ac Vline
α α iout2.2
C3 iout1.2
ac ac
Co1 Co2
Vin1.2 Vout1.2 Vin2.2 Vout2.2
V1 N1 V2 N2
ac ac
α α
iout1.N1 iout1.N2
ac Co1 ac Co2
Vin1.N1 Vout1.N1 Vin2.N2 Vout2.N2
ac ac
α α Rails
New N1 Step-Up ac Choppers N2 Step-Up ac Choppers
Compensation Bank

Figure 5. A new topology of a reactive power compensator.

1 18
0.9
16
0.8
ac Chopper Duty Cycle α

Reactive Power (Mvar)

0.7
14
0.6
0.5 12
0.4 ∆Q = 3 Mvar
10
0.3
0.2
8 Initial Circuit
0.1 With ac Chopper
0 6
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Vline (kV) Vline (kV)
(a) (b)

Figure 6. The (a) duty cycle and (b) reactive power are plotted versus the line voltage.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4 9

 At the substation, a study of active and reactive energy con- be reduced from 5,000 Mvarh to 1,500 Mvarh by adding vari-
sumption was performed over a five-month period. It was able compensation of 3 Mvar.
thus demonstrated that the invoiced reactive energy could The new compensation circuit is presented in Figure 5.
AC choppers are connected in series with the existing
fixed compensators. A filtered shunt capacitor bank
(L 3 - C 3) is added and sized to provide an additional reac-
Peak Value of vout (V)

4,000
tive power of 3 Mvar at 22 kV (for a total maximum of
3,000
13 Mvar). The controlled impedance part allows reactive
2,000 power control by variation of the duty cycle according to
1,000 Figure 6 as a function of the line voltage and the maxi-
0 mum compensated reactive power, limited to 13 Mvar.
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Vline (kV) The peak voltage on each ac chopper is limited to
Peak Value of iin (A)

320 3.6 kV for a line voltage of 27.5 kV (no-load operation). As a

300 result, four series-connected ac choppers are required. The
advantage of the voltage divider with regard to semicon-
280
ductor stress is shown in Figure 7, where the maximum
260
input current is reached when the output voltage is close
240 to 1 kV.
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Vline (kV)
(a) Experimental Results: Reactive Power
Peak Value of vout (V)

4,000 Compensation with Step-Up AC Chopper

3,000 A prototype was developed to demonstrate the feasibility
2,000 of the solution presented in Figure 5. The maximum reac-
tive power level was set to 1.2 Mvar. The ac chopper was
1,000
built at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy Research
0
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Laboratory (LAPLACE) in Toulouse, France, and tested on
Vline (kV) the SNCF test platform in Vitry (Paris), France. The experi-
Peak Value of iin (A)

240 mental setup, shown in Figure 8, is based on the series

220 connection of an ac chopper and an LC filter, which has a
capacitive response at 50 Hz. For safety reasons, resistors
200 R dis1 and R dis2 are installed to discharge the capacitors
when the circuit is turned off.
180
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 The RMS value of the ac supply used during the test is
Vline (kV) 2,450 V. The semiconductor devices used for the ac chopper
(b) converter are 3.3-kV/1,500-A insulated-gate bipolar transis-
Figure 7. The ac chopper output voltages and input currents versus tors (IGBTs) switching at 1 kHz. The maximal reactive
line voltage for (a) bank 1 and (b) bank 2. power provided is about 1.2 Mvar, and the reactive power
variation, ∆Q, is 320 kvar. An air-cooled
system based on heat pipes is used. The
control part and the generation of IGBT
L switching patterns are achieved by using
a mixed-environment digital signal
Discharge Discharge ­processor and field-programmable gate
Contactor Contactor R array. The experimental setup is shown
v dis1
C
Rdis2 in Figure 9, and the waveforms are pre-
iout
sented in Figure 10. It can be seen that
Co the current i in is sinusoidal; voltage v cell
i vout corresponds to the voltage across capac-
vin in
T1 D1 T2 itor C 0 when Vout is positive. The current
D2
vcell in switch K1_C is chopped with a polari-
C1 D1C C2 ty opposite to i in , and the voltage across
C 0 increases with duty cycle a. All
T1C T2C D2C
iK1_C experimental measurements match well
to the previously calculated values. The
reactive power variation Q ^a h is plotted
Figure 8. The reactive power compensator based on a step-up ac chopper. in Figure 11.

10 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz Circuit for
Voltage Balancing in Railway Substations

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz Control System

Circuit for Voltage Balancing
ac Chopper
Figure 12 shows a classical railway substation supplied by
ac Power-Supply
a three-phase network. At the point of common coupling, Connection
to avoid penalties from the utility, the railway company is
forced to meet a maximum voltage unbalance factor (UF)
averaged over 10 min. The UF is defined as the ratio of the
negative sequence component V- and the positive
sequence component V+ of the line voltages (v a, v b, and v c) .
Figure 13 shows the basic principle of the active Stein-
Capacitor C0
metz compensator with ac choppers realizing controlled Capacitor C Inductor L
impedance, both capacitive and inductive, as required.
Figure 9. The reactive power compensator under test.
These impedances, connected across two lines of the
three-phase network, draw currents with a negative
sequence, which compensates the current unbalance
T
and, consequently, the voltage unbalance produced by
two-line loading. Vcell
4 ms
Only the real part of the negative sequence component 500 V/div
drawn by the substation is compensated, which is the
1
main drawback of the active Steinmetz circuit. Neverthe- Vin
less, modern locomotives are equipped with active front- 500 V/div
end rectifiers, which draw a sinusoidal current in phase 2
with the line voltage. In the future, locomotives using thy-
iin
ristor rectifiers will no longer be used; therefore, it will not 500 A/div
be necessary to consider low-power-factor operation dur-
ing development. Moreover, the railway operator is not
4
interested in an instantaneous compensation since penal- 1) [Tek TDS3014B].CH1 500 V 4 ms
ties are applied on the basis of a 10-min average. In this 2) [Tek TDS3014B].CH2 500 V 4 ms
3) [Tek TDS3014B].CH3 500 V 4 ms i
case, a very simple control strategy can be implemented: 4) [Tek TDS3014B].CH4 500 V 4 ms K1_C 500 A/div
the duty cycle of the ac choppers will be controlled as a
function of the active power consumed by the substation.
Figure 10. The ac chopper waveforms (V = 2450; VRMS - a = 0.5) .

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz Circuit Design in a

Typical Substation of the French National Railways –900
The case study is a 16-MVA substation located in Évron, –950
–1,000
Q (kvar)

Pays de la Loire, France. The primary of the transformer is –1,050

connected across two of the three 90-kV/50-Hz transmis- –1,100
–1,150
sion lines, and a 2.7-Mvar reactive power compensation –1,200
–1,250
bank is connected on the 25-kV side. The rating of the 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
compensator was chosen to guarantee a UF of 1.5% when Duty Cycle α
the ­substation is loaded at 10 MW and for the lower short-
Figure 11. The experimental results: leading reactive power versus
circuit power S cc = 295 MVA. The power rating of the duty cycle a.
unbalance compensator is given by

S comp = S L - UF S cc . (7) PCC

ea Zcc ia va

Thus, the power of each CCI is equal to S comp divided by

eb Zcc ib vb il Substation
3 and set to 3.3 Mvar. The converter is designed with
itrain
standard 3.3-kV/1.5-kA IGBT modules with a switching
frequency fsw = 1 KHz. For the design, the following speci- ec Zcc ic vc
fications were developed.
xx Transformer ratio: N T1 and N T2 limit the semiconduc-
tor voltage to 1,800 V. Figure 12. A single-phase substation connection.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4 11

 ac Chopper 2.N2

LV 2 Vout2.N2

α2
ac Chopper 2.2

LV 2 Vout2.2
Inductive
Controlled
Impedance α2

IAB LF 2 ac Chopper 2.1

vb

CF 2 Vin2 LV 2 Vout2.1

NT 2 I
in2
α2
va
ac Chopper 1.1
Iin1 LF 1
LV 1
ICA CF 1 Vin1 Vout1.1
CV 1
vc
NT 1
Capacitive α1
Controlled
Impedance ac Chopper 1.2

LV 1
Vout1.2
CV 1

α1

ac-Chopper 1.N1

LV 1
Vout1.N1
CV 1

α1

Figure 13. An active Steinmetz compensator.

Power Converter Input Voltage

4 1,850
Capacitive CCI
1,800
3 Inductive CCI
1,750
Vpeak
Mvar

2 1,700
1,650
1 Capacitive CCI
1,600
Inductive CCI
0 1,550
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
α α
(a) (b)

Figure 14. The (a) reactive powers and (b) input ac choppers’ peak voltage are plotted versus duty cycle a 1,2 .

12 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

 Input filter: To balance the substation even when it is
xx
not loaded, the already existing 2.7-Mvar reactive 223
250
power compensator was replaced with one that was
900 kvar, and the input filter capacitor of the CCI was

Power Losses (kW)

200
chosen to provide a reactive power Q F = 900 kvar. In 141
150 128.2
this way, when no trains are supplied by the substa-
tions, the c
­ ircuit is seen from the three-phase network 80.6
100 61.3
as a balanced load. Moreover, L F1,2 is simply the leak-
age inductance of the 3.3-MVA transformer. 33.6
50
xx Maximum ac chopper output current: The number of
modules in parallel (N 1 or N 2) was chosen according 0
to the thermal limits of the IGBTs (case temperature: 2-L VSI NPC 3-L VSI Active
Steinmetz
TC = 100 cC, and junction temperature: T J = 125 cC)
Scomp = 5.7 MVA (UF = 1.5% at SL = 10 MVA)
with a maximum RMS current I MAX of 735 A.
Scomp = 10 MVA (UF = 0% at SL = 10 MVA)
xx Maximum power: Output impedance parameters
obtain 3.3 Mvar at the maximum duty cycle (0.9). More-
over, a 10% maximum current ripple at the switching Figure 15. A comparison between voltage-balancer topologies in terms
frequency was chosen to determine the output imped- of power losses.
ance of the capacitive ac choppers.
The reactive powers and peak input voltages (Vin1 and
Vin2) of the controlled impedances versus duty cycles a 1
400,000
and a 2 are shown in Figure 14.
350,000

358,828
340,200
Comparison of VSI Versus Active Steinmetz 300,000
Energy (J)

On the basis of the design presented in the previous sec- 250,000

tions, Figure 15 summarizes the power losses for different 200,000

200,302
voltage-balancer topologies. Losses are referred to a 181,116
150,000

31,631
­working condition for the compensators when the load

19,186
18,628
21,160
phase is z L = 0c. Comparing the two solutions based on 100,000 10,472
VSI converters, the three-level neutral point clamped 50,000
(NPC) solution is characterized by lower losses. In addition, 0
if the active Steinmetz compensator is compared with the Energy Energy Total
Capacitor Inductors
three-level NPC topology, a reduction in the power losses
of about 60% is achieved. VSI-2L VSI NPC-3L Active Steinmetz
The energy stored in the reactive elements is used as a
qualitative index of the components space volume. The Figure 16. A comparison in terms of energy stored in reactive elements
peak values for current I| and voltage V| in the inductors ^S comp = 5.7MVAh .

iL

100
(A)

–100

1 1.02 1.04 1.06 1.08 1.1

Time (s)
(a)
Pload Qload
6,000 K
(W) (var)

4,000 K
2,000 K
0K
1 1.02 1.04 1.06 1.08 1.1
Time (s)
(b)

Figure 17. (a) The substation current waveform and (b) active and reactive power.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4 13

 ia ib ic
150
100
50
(A)
0
–50
–100
–150
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Time (s)
(a)

Substation Load On Load On

3 Without Load Compensation Off Compensation On
UF%

2 1.5%
1
0
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6
Time (s)
(b)

Figure 18. (a) The line currents and (b) the voltage UF%.

and capacitors of the three studied topologies are evaluat- a third harmonic of about 20  A. Resulting line currents
ed and used in and UF% are presented in Figure 18, in which three
working periods can be distinguished in the simulation
1 1
E cap = 2 CV| 2 E ind = 2 LI| 2 . (8) corresponding to three modes of operation:
xx The substation is not loaded and appears as a bal-
Figure 16 shows a comparison of the total energies for anced load to the power network.
the three solutions. Comparing the energy stored in the xx The substation is loaded, and the UF reaches 2%.
reactive elements for the three topologies, a huge xx The chopper-controlled Steinmetz circuit is turned on
­difference exists between the proposed compensator and and UF is close to zero, well under the limit of 1.5%.
the classical solutions based on VSI Figure 19 shows a zoom on the
converters. Particularly for the size of three-phase line-currents and the
the dc-link capacitors, the capacitive currents drawn by the compensator. It
stored energy in these conversion
The semiconductor can be seen that currents i ca and i cb
structures is significant. In fact, as power losses and are quasi-sinusoidal, which confirms
the converter is injecting a purely that harmonic interactions are avoid-
negative sequence three-phase cur- energy-storage ed, as expected, with the frequency
rent, the fluctuating power makes it analysis presented above. Further-
necessary to install large capacitors
requirements more, the line voltage drop corre-
to limit the voltage ripple at the compared to the sponding to the negative current
dc side. sequence is strongly reduced, and the
widely used VSI substation voltage is boosted by 1.7 %.
Simulation Results of the
Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz
topology make the Conclusion
Circuit proposed solution In this article, reactive power and
The worst-case condition, i.e., voltage unbalance compensators
at lowest short-circuit power, very attractive for based on PWM ac choppers were pro-
S CC = 295 MVA, is considered. The posed. In multilevel structures, cur-
chopper-­controlled Steinmetz circuit
railway operators. rent or voltage sharing is naturally
is connected in parallel to the sub- ensured by the choice of impedance
station. In the circuit, the substation values. A very simple control of reac-
and the trains were replaced by a controlled c ­ urrent tive power can be achieved by varying only the duty cycle;
source. Then, simulations with PSIM software were car- no control loops for internal variables are required. Com-
ried out using measured current waveforms. The substa- pared to a TCR solution, the ac chopper does not generate
tion current waveform is given in Figure 17 and presents any low-order harmonics, thanks to its PWM operation.

14 I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

 ia ib ic
100
50
(A) 0
–50
–100
1.52 1.54 1.56 1.58 1.6
Time (s)
(a)
iac iab
60
40
20
(A)

0
–20
–40
–60
1.52 1.54 1.56 1.58 1.6
Time (s)
(b)

Figure 19. (a) The line currents and (b) the injected currents i ab and i ca .

Nevertheless, to avoid over-voltages, Direct converters ­compensators based on PWM AC

it is necessary to choose the filtering choppers,” Eur. Power Electron. J., vol.
elements with regard to preexisting provide a link 21–23, pp. 22–32, Sept. 2011.
harmonics in the network. G. Raimondo, P. Ladoux, A. Lowin-
As far as the application in ac trac-
between the source sky, H. Caron, and P. Marino, “Reactive
tion lines is concerned, simulation and the load without power compensation in railways based
results validated the operation of this on acboost choppers,” IET J. Electr. Syst.
novel topology, and a 1.2-Mvar prototype additional storage Transport., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 169–177,
of the compensator was built and tested Dec. 2012.
at the SNCF’s test platform, confirming
elements. P. Ladoux, G. Raimondo, H. Caron,
the analytical study and system perfor- and P. Marino, “Chopper-controlled
mance. Although a STATCOM solution Steinmetz circuit for voltage balanc-
using cascaded VSIs could be considered, the ac chopper ing in railway substations,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
topology, presented in Figure 5, exhibits lower semiconductor vol. 28, no. 12, pp. 5813–5822, Dec. 2013.
losses. Furthermore, a low-loss voltage-unbalance compensa- G. Raimondo. (2012, Feb.). Power quality improvements
tor based on the CCI concept was proposed, and the case in 25 kV 50 Hz railways substation based on chopper con-
study of a real French substation was undertaken. Despite the trolled impedances. Ph.D. thesis, Institut National Poly-
limited compensation domain of the presented topology, the technique de Toulouse, France. [Online]. Available:
study highlights its feasibility in railway substations. In fact, in http://ethesis.inp-­toulouse.fr/archive/00001820/01/rai-
this kind of application, average compensation is sufficient to mondo.pdf
respect the utility’s requirements. The semiconductor power
losses and energy-storage requirements compared to the Biographies
widely used VSI topology make the proposed solution very Philippe Ladoux (philippe.ladoux@laplace.univ-tlse.fr) is a
attractive for railway operators. A very simple control can be full professor at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy
achieved by varying only the chopper duty cycles, without the Research Laboratory, University of Toulouse, France.
need for control loops for other variables. The simulation Joseph Fabre (joseph.fabre@laplace.univ-tlse.fr) is a post-
results confirmed the operation of the novel topology under doctoral researcher at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy
real conditions. At present, an industrial solution of the chop- Research Laboratory, University of Toulouse, France.
per-controlled Steinmetz circuit is under development and Hervé Caron (herve.caron@sncf.fr) is an engineer at the
will be tested in 2016. Department of Fixed Installations for Traction Power Sup-
ply in the French National Railways Company.
For Further Reading
P. Ladoux, Y. Chéron, A. Lowinsky, G. Raimondo, and
P. ­Marino, “New topologies for static reactive power 

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4 15