This article provides an overview of modern technologies and implemented projects in the field of renewable energy systems for the electrification of railway transport. In the first part, the relevance of the use of renewable energy on the railways is discussed. Various types of power-generating systems in railway stations and platforms along the track, as well as in separate areas, are considered. The focus is on wind and solar energy conversion systems. The second part is devoted to the analysis of various types of energy storage devices used in projects for the electrification of railway transport since the energy storage system is one of the key elements in a hybrid renewable energy system. Systems with kinetic storage, electrochemical storage batteries, supercapacitors, hydrogen energy storage are considered. Particular attention is paid to technologies for accumulating and converting hydrogen into electrical energy, as well as hybrid systems that combine several types of storage devices with different ranges of charge/discharge rates. A comparative analysis of various hybrid electric power plant configurations, depending on the functions they perform in the electrification systems of railway transport, has been carried out.

This article is devoted to planning water-energy regimes for hydropower plants, taking into account economic and ecologic criteria. A new methodology based on a probabilistic model of water inflow has been proposed. The probabilistic method requires the calculation of low-water and average-water year typical hydrographs based on the probability curve. This allows the determination of the guaranteed hydropower plant generation schedule with a month time-step. According to the method considered, the mathematical model of the reservoir filling and normal power station operation has been designed. The software for the automated water-energy mode calculation is presented in this paper. The economic feasibility of maximum replacement of thermal power plants in the energy system with more environmentally friendly hydropower plant is substantiated. The methodology of water resources cost calculation and economic efficiency assessment under various hydropower plant regime scenarios have been proposed in the paper. Using the data and characteristics of HPPs and TPPs, an assessment of energy efficiency will be obtained in accordance with the developed methodology to determine the price of water for HPPs and all participants in the water management complex. The results of the implementation of the developed approach indicate that the price of electricity sales in a competitive electricity market can be brought into line with the price of electricity sales generated by thermal power plants, which increases the economic feasibility of the maximum replacement of thermal power plant capacity in the system with more economical and environmentally friendly hydropower plant. The developed method allows for an increase in the efficiency of water resources use and the efficiency of hydropower plant participation in the energy balance, which makes it possible to displace part of the power generated by thermal power plants.

The purpose of this article is to solve the problem of determining the cost of a water resource for the participants of the water-economic complex (WEC) on the basis of the optimal control of hydro power plants’ (HPP) functioning, taking into account their regime characteristics and requirements. In this work, a universal method, which combines an optimization method and a method for assessing marginal utility, was proposed to assess the cost of the hydro resource and control the operating modes of the WEC. The method developed by the authors involves the use of water balance, the adequate representation of the incremental rate characteristic and the determination of the cost of the hydro resource for the control of the operating modes of the WEC and HPP. Using the example of the Novosibirsk WEC, as well as HPPs and TPPs, an assessment of the energy efficiency, proposing the concept of a developed methodology for determining the price of water for HPPs and all participants in the WEC, will be obtained. Based on the results of the implementation of the developed approach at Novosibirsk HPPs, the electricity sales price competitive electricity market can be matched with the electricity sales price generated at TPP, which will be approximately 0.16 ¢/kW ∗ h.

This article considers the problem of short-term forecasting of natural inflow a day ahead to the site of a hydroelectric power station. The publications review on the research topic, carried out in the first part of the article, substantiates the relevance of using machine learning methods for solving the problem of predicting HPP modes. The second part of the article compares the accuracy of models based on linear and polynomial regression with models based on ensemble methods of machine learning, in particular, decision trees, random forest, gradient boosting of decision trees, single decision tree stacking and random forest. The site of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power plant is considered as an object of research. The calculation results presented in the article were obtained on the basis of retrospective information on the natural inflow to the HPP and meteorological factors for 4 years of observations with a discretization step of a day.

In this article the options for the useful use of the area of hydraulic structures and the adjacent territory of hydropower plants in order to accommodate photovoltaic panels are analyzed. The own needs of the hydropower plant are the main consumer of power for photo panels. Potentially accessible places for installation of photo panels are considered on the example of the Ust-Kamenogorsk hydropower plant. The principles and criteria for preliminary screening are formulated on the basis of a qualitative analysis of options for placing photo panels. A quantitative analysis of the technical potential of solar radiation and an assessment of the degree of coverage of the hydropower plant's own needs with the help of photo panels over the annual interval were made. Based on the results obtained, recommendations were formulated for the optimal location of photovoltaic panels on the territory of a hydroelectric power plant, in particular, on its hydraulic structures.