By Philippe Ladoux, Joseph Fabre,

and Herv Caron

Power-Quality
Improvement in ac
Railway Substations
The concept of chopper-controlled impedance.

he 25-kV/50-Hz ac single-phase supply is

a widely used railway system in France with a
length of 9,698 km. Overhead lines are supplied by substations drawing power from two
phases of a three-phase utility. They behave
as nonlinear and time-varying loads and represent one of the
most important sources of voltage unbalance for the electricity-transmission network. In the case of weak networks, railway operators are required to install compensation systems
in substations to satisfy utility regulations and to avoid penalties regarding voltage unbalance and reactive power consumption. The limits are established by the energy provider
with a view to guaranteeing an acceptable power quality to
other customers.
In three-phase networks, the most widely used solutions are
the classical static var (volt ampere reactive) compensators
(SVCs), based on thyristor-controlled reactors (TCRs), and the
static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) based on voltagesource inverters (VSIs). The TCR allows the variation of fundamental lagging current by phase control, counterbalancing large
leading currents from associated fixed capacitors and allowing
continuous compensation of the lagging line. However, this
solution generates a high level of harmonics and requires onerous LC filters. On the other hand, VSIs offer several advantages
over thyristor-based solutions in terms of compensation
dynamics and reduced harmonic distortion. For the last ten

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MELE.2014.2331792

Date of publication: 29 September 2014
Sign courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Darren Hester

I EEE E l e c t r i f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

2325-5987/142014IEEE

years, although it requires bulky capacitors on the dc bus, the

VSI approach has been widely used for avoiding system
unbalance. However, in high-power applications, the semiconductor losses bring forth significant costs both in terms
of active energy and cooling system maintenance, which
must be taken into consideration by the railway operator.
The concept of the chopper-controlled impedance (CCI),
presented in this article, is based on series or parallel associations of ac choppers using high-frequency pulsewidth modulation (PWM) to vary reactances at the network frequency.
This approach is a low-power-loss solution and requires a
low volume of reactive elements, a fact that makes this solution very attractive in high-power, single-phase systems
such as railway networks.

Chopper-Controlled Impedance
Various converter topologies can be applied to provide ac/ac
conversion. Direct converters provide a link between the

source and the load without additional storage elements, but

the input and output frequencies are closely related. Nevertheless, passive filters are always required to filter out the
high-frequency harmonics introduced at the input and output sides by the converter switching operation.
Among the ac/ac direct converters, cycloconverters
and matrix converters are distinguished by their ability to
adjust the output frequency and voltage of a specific ac
input voltage source. They also provide bidirectional power-transfer capabilities, allowing the use of active loads
(e.g., motors in regenerative mode). On the other hand,
the ac chopper topology, which is similar to the wellknown dc chopper, provides direct ac/ac conversion
between two ac sources at the same fundamental frequency (Figure 1). The ac chopper may be considered as
an autotransformer whose turns-ratio can be electronically controlled. Nevertheless, although it can provide
instantaneous bidirectional power transfer, it allows
power flow in one direction only, according to the type of
load. AC choppers are normally designed to transfer
power between a fixed ac voltage source (e.g., the utility
grid) and a passive ac load. The load voltage [i.e., its rootmean-square (RMS) value] can be adjusted via the duty
cycle a to control the power flow, but the power exchange
(either active or reactive) is determined purely by the load
type (resistive, capacitive, or inductive).
The ideal waveforms are illustrated in Figure 2 (sinusoidal input voltage and sinusoidal output current). In this
example, the waveforms are given for the case of a 90
leading current.
It can be easily demonstrated that the RMS value of
the output voltage fundamental V2 depends on the input
voltage RMS value V1 and can be adjusted with the duty
cycle a:

V2 = aV1 .(1)

Likewise, the relationship between current RMS values

is given by

I 1 = aI 2 .(2)

By considering the ideal waveforms, it is clear that the

ac chopper topology requires input and output filtering
elements. In any case, capacitor C F and inductor L F will be
designed to filter out the switching frequency from i 1 and
v 2 . Thus, as shown in Figure 3, the ac chopper can be used
as a step-down or a step-up converter, depending on the
connection of the network and the load. Assuming a sufficiently high switching frequency fsw, the filtering
elements L F and C F can be chosen to have a negligible

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4

influence at the network frequency. Thus, in terms of fundamental RMS values and relationships of input and
output (1) and (2), the structures behave as variable impedances controlled by the duty cycle a. The expressions for
input impedance for step-down and step-up configurations are given by (3) and (4), respectively.

i1

i2
ac

v1

Z
V
Z in . I in . out
, (3)
in
a2

V
Z in . I in . Z out a 2 . (4)
in

For example, if impedance Z out is capacitive at the grid

frequency, then the converters act as variable capacitors.
Thus, a reactive power compensator can be implemented
using the controlled impedance concept. The supplied
reactive power can be expressed as (5) for step-down
mode and (6) for step-up mode

v2
ac

Figure 1. The principle of direct ac/ac conversion.

V 2
Q = Z in a 2, (5)
out

Q=

Vin2
. (6)
a 2 Z out

Application of the Controlled Impedance

Concept to Reactive Power Compensation
Currently, most of the main-line traffic is from locomotives
equipped with thyristor rectifiers. That is why (as traffic and
load increase) reactive power compensation is required to
reduce reactive power and to keep the voltage from sagging.
Basic power-factor correction is realized by fixed capacitors.
The problem of such configurations is that when the overhead lines operate at no load, the voltage will rise but may
not exceed the 29-kV standard limit. If an increase of compensation is required, then a variable reactive power compensator must be added to the fixed-capacitor banks.
Today, French National Railways [Socit Nationale des
Chemins de fer Franais (SNCF)] use some lines equipped

v1
i1
v2
i2
Figure 2. The typical ac chopper current and voltage waveforms for
duty cycle a = 0.5.

iin

i2 = iout

i1

Ln

ac

ic
Vin = V1

V2

Vn

LF
VL

Zout

Vout

CF
ac
Load

Network

iout

(a)
i1
ic

Zout

i2 = iin

LF

Ln

ac
V2

Vout = V1

VL

Vin

Vn

ac
Load

(b)

Network

Figure 3. The CCI with buck or boost ac/ac converter: (a) the step-down configuration and (b) the step-up configuration.

I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

with thyristor-based SVCs. However, the TCR draws a nonsinusoidal current, and in single-phase systems, these have a
high level of third harmonic (up to 34% of the fundamental).
As a result, this topology requires a bulky LC shunt filter
tuned to the third harmonic. To avoid this drawback, a new
structure, based on CCIs was proposed. The case study is a
60-MVA substation close to Paris. The substation is phase-tophase connected to a 225-kV three-phase transmission line.
The initial circuit, presented in Figure 4, includes two fixed compensation banks with antiharmonic inductors (L 1 and L 2) .

Overhead Line
L1

L2

c2
c1
60-MVA
Fixed
Substation
225-kV Transformer Compensation
Transmission
Line

iLoad
(Trains)

Vline
Rails

Figure 4. A 25-kV, 50-Hz ac railway line power supply.

Overhead Line
L1
C1
LF1
iin1

C2
LF2

iout1.1

ac
Vin1.1

L3

L2

Already-Existing
Compensation Banks

Vout1.1

iin2
Co1

iout2.1

ac
Vin2.1

ac

C3
V1

ac

iout1.2

ac
Vin1.2

Vout1.2

Co1
V2

N1

ac

Vout1.N1

Vout2.2

N2

iout1.N2

ac

Co1

Co2

ac

Vin2.N2

Vout2.N2

Co2

ac

New
Compensation Bank

iout2.2

Vin2.2

iout1.N1

ac
Vin1.N1

Vline

ac

ac

Co2

Vout2.1

N1 Step-Up ac Choppers

Rails

N2 Step-Up ac Choppers

Figure 5. A new topology of a reactive power compensator.

18

16

0.8

Reactive Power (Mvar)

ac Chopper Duty Cycle

0.9
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

12
Q = 3 Mvar

10

Initial Circuit
With ac Chopper

0.1
0
19

14

20

21

22 23 24 25 26
Vline (kV)

27

28

29

19

(a)

20

21

22

23 24
Vline (kV)

25

26

27

(b)

Figure 6. The (a) duty cycle and (b) reactive power are plotted versus the line voltage.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4

4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000

Peak Value of iin (A)

0
19
320

Peak Value of vout (V)

Peak Value of vout (V)

At the substation, a study of active and reactive energy consumption was performed over a five-month period. It was
thus demonstrated that the invoiced reactive energy could

4,000

20

21

22

23 24
Vline (kV)

25

26

27

20

21

22

23 24
Vline (kV)
(a)

25

26

27

300
280
260
240
19

be reduced from 5,000 Mvarh to 1,500 Mvarh by adding variable compensation of 3 Mvar.
The new compensation circuit is presented in Figure 5.
AC choppers are connected in series with the existing
fixed compensators. A filtered shunt capacitor bank
(L 3 - C 3) is added and sized to provide an additional reactive power of 3 Mvar at 22 kV (for a total maximum of
13 Mvar). The controlled impedance part allows reactive
power control by variation of the duty cycle according to
Figure 6 as a function of the line voltage and the maximum compensated reactive power, limited to 13 Mvar.
The peak voltage on each ac chopper is limited to
3.6 kV for a line voltage of 27.5 kV (no-load operation). As a
result, four series-connected ac choppers are required. The
advantage of the voltage divider with regard to semiconductor stress is shown in Figure 7, where the maximum
input current is reached when the output voltage is close
to 1 kV.

Experimental Results: Reactive Power

Compensation with Step-Up AC Chopper

A prototype was developed to demonstrate the feasibility

of the solution presented in Figure 5. The maximum reactive power level was set to 1.2 Mvar. The ac chopper was
1,000
built at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy Research
0
Laboratory (LAPLACE) in Toulouse, France, and tested on
19
20
21 22 23
24 25 26 27
Vline (kV)
the SNCF test platform in Vitry (Paris), France. The experi240
mental setup, shown in Figure 8, is based on the series
connection of an ac chopper and an LC filter, which has a
220
capacitive response at 50 Hz. For safety reasons, resistors
200
R dis1 and R dis2 are installed to discharge the capacitors
when the circuit is turned off.
180
19
20
21 22 23
24 25 26 27
The RMS value of the ac supply used during the test is
Vline (kV)
2,450 V. The semiconductor devices used for the ac chopper
(b)
converter are 3.3-kV/1,500-A insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) switching at 1 kHz. The maximal reactive
Figure 7. The ac chopper output voltages and input currents versus
power provided is about 1.2 Mvar, and the reactive power
line voltage for (a) bank 1 and (b) bank 2.
variation, Q, is 320 kvar. An air-cooled
system based on heat pipes is used. The
control part and the generation of IGBT
L
switching patterns are achieved by using
a mixed-environment digital signal
Discharge
Discharge
processor and field-programmable gate
Contactor
Contactor R
array. The experimental setup is shown
dis1
v
C
in Figure 9, and the waveforms are preRdis2
iout
sented in Figure 10. It can be seen that
Co
the current i in is sinusoidal; voltage v cell
vout
corresponds to the voltage across capaci
in
vin
T1
T2
D1
itor C 0 when Vout is positive. The current
D2
vcell
in switch K1_C is chopped with a polariC1
C2
D1C
ty opposite to i in , and the voltage across
C 0 increases with duty cycle a. All
T1C
D2C
T2C
iK1_C
experimental measurements match well
to the previously calculated values. The
reactive power variation Q ^a h is plotted
Figure 8. The reactive power compensator based on a step-up ac chopper.
in Figure 11.
3,000

Peak Value of iin (A)

2,000

10

I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz Circuit for

Voltage Balancing in Railway Substations
Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz
Circuit for Voltage Balancing
Figure 12 shows a classical railway substation supplied by
a three-phase network. At the point of common coupling,
to avoid penalties from the utility, the railway company is
forced to meet a maximum voltage unbalance factor (UF)
averaged over 10 min. The UF is defined as the ratio of the
negative sequence component V- and the positive
sequence component V+ of the line voltages (v a, v b, and v c) .
Figure 13 shows the basic principle of the active Steinmetz compensator with ac choppers realizing controlled
impedance, both capacitive and inductive, as required.
These impedances, connected across two lines of the
three-phase network, draw currents with a negative
sequence, which compensates the current unbalance
and, consequently, the voltage unbalance produced by
two-line loading.
Only the real part of the negative sequence component
drawn by the substation is compensated, which is the
main drawback of the active Steinmetz circuit. Nevertheless, modern locomotives are equipped with active frontend rectifiers, which draw a sinusoidal current in phase
with the line voltage. In the future, locomotives using thyristor rectifiers will no longer be used; therefore, it will not
be necessary to consider low-power-factor operation during development. Moreover, the railway operator is not
interested in an instantaneous compensation since penalties are applied on the basis of a 10-min average. In this
case, a very simple control strategy can be implemented:
the duty cycle of the ac choppers will be controlled as a
function of the active power consumed by the substation.

Control System
ac Chopper
ac Power-Supply
Connection

Capacitor C0

T
Vcell

4 ms

500 V/div
1

Vin

500 V/div
2
iin

500 A/div

1) [Tek TDS3014B].CH1 500 V 4 ms

2) [Tek TDS3014B].CH2 500 V 4 ms
3) [Tek TDS3014B].CH3 500 V 4 ms i
4) [Tek TDS3014B].CH4 500 V 4 ms K1_C

500 A/div

Figure 10. The ac chopper waveforms (V = 2450; VRMS - a = 0.5) .

Q (kvar)

900
950
1,000
1,050
1,100
1,150
1,200
1,250

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

Duty Cycle

Figure 11. The experimental results: leading reactive power versus

duty cycle a.

S comp = S L - UF S cc . (7)

Thus, the power of each CCI is equal to S comp divided by

3 and set to 3.3 Mvar. The converter is designed with
standard 3.3-kV/1.5-kA IGBT modules with a switching
frequency fsw = 1 KHz. For the design, the following specifications were developed.
xx
Transformer ratio: N T1 and N T2 limit the semiconductor voltage to 1,800 V.

Inductor L

Figure 9. The reactive power compensator under test.

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz Circuit Design in a

Typical Substation of the French National Railways
The case study is a 16-MVA substation located in vron,
Pays de la Loire, France. The primary of the transformer is
connected across two of the three 90-kV/50-Hz transmission lines, and a 2.7-Mvar reactive power compensation
bank is connected on the 25-kV side. The rating of the
compensator was chosen to guarantee a UF of 1.5% when
the substation is loaded at 10MW and for the lower shortcircuit power S cc = 295 MVA. The power rating of the
unbalance compensator is given by

Capacitor C

ea

Zcc

ia

va

eb

Zcc

ib

vb

ec

Zcc

ic

vc

PCC

il Substation
itrain

Figure 12. A single-phase substation connection.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4

11

ac Chopper 2.N2
LV 2

Vout2.N2

LV 2

Vout2.2

LV 2

Vout2.1

2
ac Chopper 2.2

Inductive
Controlled
Impedance
IAB

vb

2
ac Chopper 2.1

LF 2

Vin2

CF 2
NT 2 I
in2

va

ac Chopper 1.1

Iin1 LF 1

vc

ICA
NT 1

LV 1

Vin1

CF 1
Capacitive
Controlled
Impedance

CV 1

Vout1.1

1
ac Chopper 1.2
LV 1
CV 1

Vout1.2

1
ac-Chopper 1.N1
LV 1
CV 1

Vout1.N1

1
Figure 13. An active Steinmetz compensator.

Power
Capacitive CCI
Inductive CCI

1,800
1,750
Vpeak

Mvar

3
2

1,700
1,650

1
0

Converter Input Voltage

1,850

Capacitive CCI
Inductive CCI

1,600
0

0.2

0.4

(a)

0.6

0.8

1,550

0.2

0.4

(b)

0.6

Figure 14. The (a) reactive powers and (b) input ac choppers peak voltage are plotted versus duty cycle a 1,2 .

12

I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

0.8

xx
Input filter: To balance the substation even when it is
223

250
Power Losses (kW)

200
141

128.2

150

80.6

100

61.3
33.6

50
0
2-L VSI

NPC 3-L VSI

Active
Steinmetz

Scomp = 5.7 MVA (UF = 1.5% at SL = 10 MVA)

Scomp = 10 MVA (UF = 0% at SL = 10 MVA)
Figure 15. A comparison between voltage-balancer topologies in terms
of power losses.

400,000

250,000

50,000
0

Energy
Capacitor
VSI-2L

21,160

100,000

19,186
18,628

150,000

10,472

200,000

Energy
Inductors

VSI NPC-3L

200,302

340,200

300,000

181,116

On the basis of the design presented in the previous sections, Figure 15 summarizes the power losses for different
voltage-balancer topologies. Losses are referred to a
working condition for the compensators when the load
phase is z L = 0c. Comparing the two solutions based on
VSI converters, the three-level neutral point clamped
(NPC) solution is characterized by lower losses. In addition,
if the active Steinmetz compensator is compared with the
three-level NPC topology, a reduction in the power losses
of about 60% is achieved.
The energy stored in the reactive elements is used as a
qualitative index of the components space volume. The
peak values for current I| and voltage V| in the inductors

Energy (J)

Comparison of VSI Versus Active Steinmetz

358,828

350,000

31,631

not loaded, the already existing 2.7-Mvar reactive

power compensator was replaced with one that was
900 kvar, and the input filter capacitor of the CCI was
chosen to provide a reactive power Q F = 900 kvar. In
this way, when no trains are supplied by the substations, the c
ircuit is seen from the three-phase network
as a balanced load. Moreover, L F1,2 is simply the leakage inductance of the 3.3-MVA transformer.
xx
Maximum ac chopper output current: The number of
modules in parallel (N 1 or N 2) was chosen according
to the thermal limits of the IGBTs (case temperature:
TC = 100 cC, and junction temperature: T J = 125 cC)
with a maximum RMS current I MAX of 735A.
xx
Maximum power: Output impedance parameters
obtain 3.3Mvar at the maximum duty cycle (0.9). Moreover, a 10% maximum current ripple at the switching
frequency was chosen to determine the output impedance of the capacitive ac choppers.
The reactive powers and peak input voltages (Vin1 and
Vin2) of the controlled impedances versus duty cycles a 1
and a 2 are shown in Figure 14.

Total
Active Steinmetz

Figure 16. A comparison in terms of energy stored in reactive elements

^S comp = 5.7MVAh .

iL

(A)

100
0

100
1

1.02

(W) (var)

Pload

1.04

Qload

Time (s)
(a)

1.06

1.08

1.1

1.06

1.08

1.1

6,000 K
4,000 K
2,000 K
0K
1

1.02

1.04

Time (s)
(b)

Figure 17. (a) The substation current waveform and (b) active and reactive power.

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4

13

(A)

ia

ib ic

150
100
50
0
50
100
150
0.8

1.2

1.4

1.6

UF%

Time (s)
(a)
3
2
1
0

Substation
Without Load

Load On
Compensation Off

0.8

Load On
Compensation On

1.2

1.4

1.5%

1.6

Time (s)
(b)

Figure 18. (a) The line currents and (b) the voltage UF%.

and capacitors of the three studied topologies are evaluated and used in

1
E cap = 2 CV| 2

1
E ind = 2 LI| 2 . (8)

Figure 16 shows a comparison of the total energies for

the three solutions. Comparing the energy stored in the
reactive elements for the three topologies, a huge
difference exists between the proposed compensator and
the classical solutions based on VSI
converters. Particularly for the size of
the dc-link capacitors, the capacitive
stored energy in these conversion
structures is significant. In fact, as
the converter is injecting a purely
negative sequence three-phase current, the fluctuating power makes it
necessary to install large capacitors
to limit the voltage ripple at the
dc side.

Simulation Results of the

Chopper-Controlled Steinmetz
Circuit

The semiconductor
power losses and
energy-storage
requirements
compared to the
widely used VSI
topology make the
proposed solution
very attractive for
railway operators.

The worst-case condition, i.e.,

at lowest short-circuit power,
S CC = 295 MVA, is considered. The
chopper-controlled Steinmetz circuit
is connected in parallel to the substation. In the circuit, the substation
and the trains were replaced by a controlled c
urrent
source. Then, simulations with PSIM software were carried out using measured current waveforms. The substation current waveform is given in Figure 17 and presents

14

I E E E E l e c t ri f i c a t i on M a gaz ine / september 2014

a third harmonic of about 20 A. Resulting line currents

and UF% are presented in Figure 18, in which three
working periods can be distinguished in the simulation
corresponding to three modes of operation:
xx
The substation is not loaded and appears as a balanced load to the power network.
xx
The substation is loaded, and the UF reaches 2%.
xx
The chopper-controlled Steinmetz circuit is turned on
and UF is close to zero, well under the limit of 1.5%.
Figure 19 shows a zoom on the
three-phase line-currents and the
currents drawn by the compensator. It
can be seen that currents i ca and i cb
are quasi-sinusoidal, which confirms
that harmonic interactions are avoided, as expected, with the frequency
analysis presented above. Furthermore, the line voltage drop corresponding to the negative current
sequence is strongly reduced, and the
substation voltage is boosted by 1.7 %.

Conclusion

In this article, reactive power and

voltage unbalance compensators
based on PWM ac choppers were proposed. In multilevel structures, current or voltage sharing is naturally
ensured by the choice of impedance
values. A very simple control of reactive power can be achieved by varying only the duty cycle;
no control loops for internal variables are required. Compared to a TCR solution, the ac chopper does not generate
any low-order harmonics, thanks to its PWM operation.

100

ia

ib

ic

(A)

50
0
50
100

1.52

(A)

iac

1.54

1.56

1.58

1.6

1.56

1.58

1.6

Time (s)
(a)

iab

60
40
20
0
20
40
60
1.52

1.54
Time (s)
(b)

Figure 19. (a) The line currents and (b) the injected currents i ab and i ca .

Direct converters
provide a link
between the source
and the load without
additional storage
elements.

Nevertheless, to avoid over-voltages,

it is necessary to choose the filtering
elements with regard to preexisting
harmonics in the network.
As far as the application in ac traction lines is concerned, simulation
results validated the operation of this
novel topology, and a 1.2-Mvar prototype
of the compensator was built and tested
at the SNCFs test platform, confirming
the analytical study and system performance. Although a STATCOM solution
using cascaded VSIs could be considered, the ac chopper
topology, presented in Figure 5, exhibits lower semiconductor
losses. Furthermore, a low-loss voltage-unbalance compensator based on the CCI concept was proposed, and the case
study of a real French substation was undertaken. Despite the
limited compensation domain of the presented topology, the
study highlights its feasibility in railway substations. In fact, in
this kind of application, average compensation is sufficient to
respect the utilitys requirements. The semiconductor power
losses and energy-storage requirements compared to the
widely used VSI topology make the proposed solution very
attractive for railway operators. A very simple control can be
achieved by varying only the chopper duty cycles, without the
need for control loops for other variables. The simulation
results confirmed the operation of the novel topology under
real conditions. At present, an industrial solution of the chopper-controlled Steinmetz circuit is under development and
will be tested in 2016.

compensators based on PWM AC

choppers, Eur. Power Electron. J., vol.
2123, pp. 2232, Sept. 2011.
G. Raimondo, P. Ladoux, A. Lowinsky, H. Caron, and P. Marino, Reactive
power compensation in railways based
on acboost choppers, IET J. Electr. Syst.
Transport., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 169177,
Dec. 2012.
P. Ladoux, G. Raimondo, H. Caron,
and P. Marino, Chopper-controlled
Steinmetz circuit for voltage balancing in railway substations, IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 28, no. 12, pp. 58135822, Dec. 2013.
G. Raimondo. (2012, Feb.). Power quality improvements
in 25 kV 50 Hz railways substation based on chopper controlled impedances. Ph.D. thesis, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, France. [Online]. Available:
http://ethesis.inp-toulouse.fr/archive/00001820/01/raimondo.pdf

Biographies
Philippe Ladoux (philippe.ladoux@laplace.univ-tlse.fr) is a
full professor at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy
Research Laboratory, University of Toulouse, France.
Joseph Fabre (joseph.fabre@laplace.univ-tlse.fr) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Plasma and Conversion of Energy
Research Laboratory, University of Toulouse, France.
Herv Caron (herve.caron@sncf.fr) is an engineer at the
Department of Fixed Installations for Traction Power Supply in the French National Railways Company.

For Further Reading

P. Ladoux, Y. Chron, A. Lowinsky, G. Raimondo, and
P. Marino, New topologies for static reactive power

IEEE Elec trific ation Magazine / s ep t emb er 201 4

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