CENELEC published a new important standard for the railway community. EN 50388-2:2025 ‘Fixed installations and rolling stock for railway applications - Technical criteria for the coordination between electric traction power supply systems and rolling stock to achieve interoperability - Part 2: Stability and harmonics’ establishes the acceptance criteria, according to EN 50388-1:2022, for the compatibility between traction units and power supply for known phenomena and known technologies. The standard was developed by CLC/TC 9X ‘Electrical and electronic applications for railways’.
More precisely, this new standard addresses two categories of co-ordination: the co-ordination between controlled elements and also between these elements and the resonances in the electrical infrastructure in order to achieve network system stability; and the co-ordination of harmonic behaviour with respect to excitation of electrical resonances. The main phenomena identified and treated in this document are electrical resonance stability, low frequency stability, and overvoltages caused by harmonics.
The scope of EN 50388-2:2025 covers several electric traction systems: railways, guided mass transport systems that are integrated with railways, and material transport systems that are integrated with railways. Public three-phase networks are out of the scope, but networks which are dedicated to railways are included. This version of the standard only applies to AC systems. Later versions might include similar effects in DC networks.
This standard aims to support the acceptance of new elements (rolling stock or infrastructure) by specifying precise requirements and methods for demonstration of compliance. This document acts as “code of practice” quoted in EN 50388-1:2022.
CLC/TC 9X has developed this standard in the framework of the EC standardization request M/591 on railway interoperability, and it supports the essential requirements of Directive (EU) 2016/797 on the interoperability of the rail system within the European Union. This new standard once again underlines the major role and contribution of CLC/TC 9X in the electrical and electronic aspects of the development of a safe and interoperable railway network in Europe.
EN 50388-2:2025 was developed by CLC/TC 9X, the secretariat of which is held by AFNOR-CEF.
