ADIF (Spanish administrator of railway infrastructures) has awarded Eiffage Energía, in a UTE (Temporary Union of Companies) with Telice S.A., the works and maintenance of the stations of self-transformation and energy remote control of the Pedralba-Orense section of the Madrid-Galicia AVE line, with a budget of more than 10 million euros.
The works, which have just begun and that must be completed in 9 months, consist of the construction of various stations of self-transformation for the power supply system to the catenary provided by ADIF for the aforementioned High Speed section.
The 2×25 kV electrification system supplies power at a voltage of 50 kV between the contact line and the feeder and the rolling stock takes power at a voltage of 25 kV between the contact line and the rail, therefore, requiring the installation of 55/27.5kV ratio self-transformers approximately every 15 kilometres.
In order to accommodate these self-transformers and their auxiliary equipment, it is planned to build facilities located in the vicinity of the tracks and which will be of two types, depending on whether the self-transformers are installed near neutral zones between substations, final self-transformation stations (ATFs), or en route, stations of intermediate self-transformation (ATIs).
Each traction substation corresponds to an area, which includes the stations of self-transformation associated with the substation of the area and which is defined as the catenary path that, in normal, non-degraded mode of operation, is fed by said substation.
With regard to maintenance, which will take place for 24 months, once the construction of each of the self-transformation stations has been completed, work will be carried out, on the one hand, on predictive maintenance performed at predetermined intervals or in accordance with prescribed criteria, and aimed at reducing the probability of failure or degradation of the operation of an element; and corrective maintenance carried out after the recognition of a fault and intended to bring an element to a state in which it can perform the required function.
