Germany – Research and development services and related consultancy services – Forschungsprojekt - DZSF - Ausgleich volatiler Energieerzeugung im Bahnstromnetz

With the Federal Climate Protection Act (KSG), which is intended to ensure the achievement of national climate protection targets and has legally anchored the climate protection and sectoral targets set out in the Climate Protection Plan 2050, Germany aims to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by the year 2045. Currently, traction power is provided from a mixed portfolio of its own conventional power plants, renewable energy plants, and the public power grid. The strategy to increase the share of renewable energies (RE) is based, among other things, on the conclusion of green power supply contracts at national and European levels, as well as the expansion of RE generating plants on railway operational facilities. Since April 2023, power has been fed directly into the German traction power grid for the first time. Furthermore, the current legislation promotes the increase in the share of RE plants through the General Railway Act (AEG) §18f and the Act on the Expansion of Renewable Energies (EEG) §37. The share of regeneratively generated power in the traction power mix was already 71.5% in 2025. The increasing expansion and fluctuating RE feed-in plants, such as photovoltaic and wind power plants, with an inherently fluctuating energy supply, as well as the projected increase in rail traffic, increase the complexity of a secure and sustainable energy supply. High load gradients on the generator and consumer sides, and the phasing out of conventional power plant technology to ensure grid stability in the traction power grid, bring new technical and economic challenges. In particular, the increasing use of power electronic components and their interaction in the overall rail system increase the complexity in the traction power grid. The project aims to investigate the effects of the increasing share of RE on the traction power grid and the public grid, and to derive technical and economic requirements and measures for energy storage systems from this. The project is intended to support a secure energy supply in the traction power grid and future demand-oriented grid planning, and to promote the necessary expansion of RE generating plants in the traction power grid to ensure the implementation of the Climate Protection Plan 2050 for a greenhouse gas-neutral transport system by 2045.