Optimizing the energy consumption and operational availability of point heaters using weather forecasts

摘要

During the winter season point heaters in the network of the Deutsche Bahn consume as much electric energy as a large city. They are controlled using locally measured weather conditions. These are limited to the number and type of the installed sensors. In the Project InfraGrid the geographical and chronological context is used to predict the consumption of electric power accurately and to enhance the operational reliability. Weather forecasts can be used to predict the times at which the points have to be heated due to fast changing conditions that would be measured too late by locally installed sensors. InfraGrid will provide a service that enables the manufacturers of point heaters to get location based weather forecasts. This will increase the operative availability of rail crossings and will help to reduce train delays. Additionally these timestamps are based to calculate the electric load forecasts for point heaters. Topological and geographical aspects will aggregate the load of each device. This information enables the supplier to plan the usage of available power stations and optimise energy trading on spot market, which will in turn reduce costs for intra-day trading of energy on spot markets. As another option, the use of turnout heaters to stabilise the energy network comes into reach. This is a key feature in using renewable energy sources.