Assessment and Mitigation of Voltage Drops on Traction Lines: Case Study of Sebeta-Adama Line

The transmission line in an electrified railway system must provide power transmission within
the voltage limit at safe and quality conditions. Therefore, system analysis within the traction
power system is vital to the design and operation of an electrified railway. Loads in traction
power system are often characterized by their mobility, wide range of power variations,
regeneration and service dependence. One of the main problems in the railway supply stations
are the voltage drops due to the changes of the load. Voltage drop in electrified railway have an
influence on the location of traction substation (reduces distance between traction transformer
and section post length) and operating railway transport in a such condition disturbs
transportation system, as a result the reactive power compensator should be installed to have a
better voltage at receiving end.
Ethiopian railway cooperation is constructing national railway transport from Sebeta to Meiso
with seven feeding traction substation from Sebeta to Adama. In this thesis traction network
voltage drop analysis is undertaken for various feeding condition. Taking sample section from
Sebeta substation to Indode substation analyses of the traction network voltage drop over the
feeding condition has been conducted for different loading cases. The modeling and simulation
of the system is done by MATLAB/SIMULINK software