PKP Energetyka develops the Polish railway within the framework of Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking Partnership.

PKP Energetyka signed a partnership agreement within Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking. The value of the projects to be implemented by the company until 2026 under this initiative is nearly EUR 3.4 million, while in the long term (until 2031) it will be another EUR 5.6 million. Europe's Rail JU partnership creates and sets research and development directions for the railway sector in the Horizon Europe financial perspective in the years 2021-2031.

Pic.: Official signing of partnership declaration, 18.01.2023.

As part of the project, PKP Energetyka is responsible mainly for the use of energy storage facilities in the railway ecosystem, both in terms of increasing the possibility of connecting RES sources and supplying the railway with green energy in a direct manner. In addition, the objective will be to use storage facilities so as to enable the construction and existence of communities (clusters, cooperatives, hubs, local balancing areas, etc.) by the railway that will benefit from green energy and the opportunities provided by the railway.

Preparatory works to build the Polish ecosystem within Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking lasted two years. On January 18, 2023, an opening meeting was held, at which 17 companies and organizations signed the declaration of partnership in the presence of, among others, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of State Assets - Maciej Małecki, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education and Science - Wojciech Murdzek, President of PKP S.A. - Krzysztof Mamiński as well as deans and professors of scientific establishments.

The partnership provides co-financing from the European Commission throughout the Horizon Europe financial perspective. This guarantees the possibility of implementing research and development works, for which the total level of eligible costs is almost EUR 20.1 million. These funds will be successively launched in three competitions, implemented in the years 2022-2031. For its projects worth EUR 9 million, PKP Energetyka will receive co-financing of up to 44.5% of the project amount.

The objective of the projects which PKP Energetyka is responsible for includes, among others, the verification of an energy storage model based on the ideas of local cooperation between consumers and generating entities, construction of assumptions and participation in the development of algorithms for the model, or launch of demonstrators working in the distribution network of PKP Energetyka, aimed at increasing the RES generation capacity and improving the efficiency of local energy use.

“One of the planned demonstrators is to confirm the possibility of increasing the connection capacity for RES sources in the distribution network of PKP Energetyka using energy storage facilities. The second is to verify the possibility of cooperation between energy storage facilities and other elements of the power system on an “energy hub” basis, thus reducing grid losses and increasing the energy efficiency of the electricity generation, distribution and consumption process. Together with the energy storage facility in Garbce, which has already been in operation for two years, subsequently built storage facilities will form the basis for the construction of about 300 profiled and customized ecosystems of this kind in Poland” - explains Piotr Obrycki, director of the Research and Development Office at PKP Energetyka.

A detailed schedule of the works for the coming years assumes:

In the years 2023-2024:

• designing a set of domain algorithms for energy storage facilities, as well as designing accompanying infrastructure to enable the proper balancing of energy consumption,
• designing an energy management system for the storage facility along with the implementation,
• preparing the requirements and ordering energy storage units for use in the implementation of works and preliminary tests;

In the years 2025-2026:

• construction and commissioning of demonstrators in the environment of two traction substations,
• carrying out analyses and tests of the solution,
• acquisition of data from the operation of demonstrators for the purposes of follow-up simulations.

These tasks will be carried out in cooperation with the national partners: Poznan University of Technology, the Railway Institute and the Institute of Innovative Technologies EMAG, with ongoing cooperation also with foreign partners.

As the organizers of the meeting emphasized, the tasks supporting ecology, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, circular economy and improvement in the energy efficiency linked to the increased use of RES to power railway traction and buildings are particularly important in this perspective. The works which are being started presently also assume the development of standards for the interface of hydrogen refueling of rail vehicles and ensuring the safety of the process.

In addition to PKP Energetyka, the following participate in the ecosystem: PKP S.A., AGH University of Science and Technology, Centralny Port Komunikacyjny sp. z o.o., Infrabyte sp. z o.o., Research Institute of Roads and Bridges (POLTRIN network), Electrotechnical Institute (Łukasiewicz Research Network), Railway Institute (POLTRIN network), Warsaw Institute of Technology (Łukasiewicz Research Network), Institute of Innovative Technologies EMAG (Łukasiewicz Research Network), Łódzka Kolej Aglomeracyjna Sp. z o.o., Ignacy Mościcki State School of Higher Vocational Education in Ciechanów, PKP Informatyka sp. z o.o., Poznan University of Technology, Poznan Institute of Technology (Łukasiewicz Research Network), International Union of Railways (UIC), and Military University of Technology in Warsaw.

Pic.: Board with signatures cofirming the partnership.