AUSZUG | eb - Elektrische Bahnen INT 2/2015

7 113 (2015) INT 2 Focus Railway converters from Europe for the railways worldwide Two companies in Germany and one in Switzerland supply frequency converters for railways in Europe and the USA and now also phase converters for railways in Australia. On the 2AC high-voltage networks of DB, ÖBB, SBB and RhB – connected either directly or via coupling transformers – rotating machines will continue to sta- bilise the network in the traditional way with their ro- tating mass for several decades. Along with the turbo generators mentioned in [1] in Mannheim, Kirchmös- er and Schkopau a 110MW machine in Lünen power station also works on the network (Figure 1). The ma- chines of the railway hydro power stations in south- ern Germany, Austria and Switzerland are particularly long-lasting; several stand a good chance of reaching one hundred years of service and in Ticino they even gain in number (page 264 in eb 5/2015). As power electronics has replaced the traditional complicated slip-frequency control with auxiliaries, rotating trans- formers and other oddities in the rotor circuit of the asynchronous machines, moving-coil converters will also continue to be in existence for years to come. 7% to 9% of the converter apparent power was to be in- stalled as apparent power of these control converters. Further power increases will come by static fre- quency conversion from the 3AC national grid, partly as transmission of energy which already belongs to the railway. The development and introduction of this technology started 45 years ago in Scandinavia, where the railway 2AC networks were not allowed to develop from their first beginnings and the railway lines were therefore to be supplied using a decentralised struc- ture. The Swedish company ASEA and their successor ABB thereby took on a pioneering role. Also in the USA several such systems for the conversion of 3AC 60Hz into 2AC 25Hz – most of which were supplied from Europe – already came into being in the 20 th century. Two decades ago the status at the time was re- ported in this magazine, i.e. after the first 25 years (Figure 2) [2]. This should now be continued here for the following twenty years. In Table 1 the national subsidiaries are not differentiated, the converter sup- pliers are named rather than the system constructors such as Adtranz until 2000 and Balfour Beatty today. Figure 2: Static frequency converter for railways from 1972 to 1996 (Table 1 in [2]). Figure 1: Lünen coal power station of STEAG, view from the northwest (Photo: STEAG).