TY - JOUR A1 - Burlacu, Robert A1 - Egger, Herbert A1 - Groß, Martin A1 - Martin, Alexander A1 - Pfetsch, Marc A1 - Schewe, Lars A1 - Sirvent, Mathias A1 - Skutella, Martin T1 - Maximizing the storage capacity of gas networks: a global MINLP approach N2 - In this paper, we study the transient optimization of gas networks, focusing in particular on maximizing the storage capacity of the network. We include nonlinear gas physics and active elements such as valves and compressors, which due to their switching lead to discrete decisions. The former is described by a model derived from the Euler equations that is given by a coupled system of nonlinear parabolic partial differential equations (PDEs). We tackle the resulting mathematical optimization problem by a first-discretize-then-optimize approach. To this end, we introduce a new discretization of the underlying system of parabolic PDEs and prove well-posedness for the resulting nonlinear discretized system. Endowed with this discretization, we model the problem of maximizing the storage capacity as a non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear problem (MINLP). For the numerical solution of the MINLP, we algorithmically extend a well-known relaxation approach that has already been used very successfully in the field of stationary gas network optimization. This method allows us to solve the problem to global optimality by iteratively solving a series of mixed-integer problems (MIPs). Finally, we present two case studies that illustrate the applicability of our approach. KW - Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming KW - Transient Gas Transport Optimization KW - Storage Capacity Maximization KW - Power-to-Gas KW - First-Discretize-Then-Optimize Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11081-018-9414-5 VL - 20 SP - 543 EP - 573 ET - Optimization and Engineering ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groß, Martin A1 - Marc E., Pfetsch A1 - Schewe, Lars A1 - Schmidt, Martin A1 - Skutella, Martin T1 - Algorithmic Results for Potential-Based Flows: Easy and Hard Cases N2 - Potential-based flows are an extension of classical network flows in which the flow on an arc is determined by the difference of the potentials of its incident nodes. Such flows are unique and arise, for example, in energy networks. Two important algorithmic problems are to determine whether there exists a feasible flow and to maximize the flow between two designated nodes. We show that these problems can be solved for the single source and sink case by reducing the network to a single arc. However, if we additionally consider switches that allow to force the flow to 0 and decouple the potentials, these problems are NP-hard. Nevertheless, for particular series-parallel networks, one can use algorithms for the subset sum problem. Moreover, applying network presolving based on generalized series-parallel structures allows to significantly reduce the size of realistic energy networks. KW - Potential networks KW - Potential-based flows KW - Maximum flow problem KW - Series-parallel graphs KW - Network reduction Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/net.21865 VL - 73 IS - 3 SP - 303 EP - 324 ET - Networks ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groß, Martin A1 - Pfetsch, Marc E. A1 - Skutella, Martin T1 - On the Complexity of Instationary Gas Flows N2 - We study a simplistic model of instationary gas flows consisting of a sequence of k stationary gas flows. We present efficiently solvable cases and NP-hardness results, establishing complexity gaps between stationary and instationary gas flows (already for k=2) as well as between instationary gas s-t-flows and instationary gas b-flows. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orl.2018.01.007 VL - 46 IS - 3 SP - 286 EP - 290 ET - Operations Research Letters ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Habeck, Oliver A1 - Pfetsch, Marc E. A1 - Ulbrich, Stefan T1 - Global optimization of mixed-integer ODE constrained network problems using the example of stationary gas transport N2 - In this paper we propose a new approach for finding global solutions of mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problems with ordinary differential equation constraints on networks. Instead of using a first discretize then optimize approach, we combine spatial and variable branching with appropriate discretizations of the differential equations to derive relaxations of the original problem. To construct the relaxations we derive convex under- and concave over-estimators for the ODE solution operators using numerical discretization schemes. Thereby, we make use of the underlying network structure, where the solutions of the ODEs only need to be known at a finite number of points. This property enables us to adaptively refine the discretization and relaxation without introducing new variables. The incorporation into a spatial branch-and-bound process allows to compute global epsilon-optimal solutions or decide infeasibility. We prove that this algorithm terminates finitely under some natural assumptions. We then show how this approach works for the example of stationary gas transport and provide some illustrative computational examples. KW - Global Optimization KW - Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1137/17M1152668 VL - 29 IS - 4 SP - 2949 EP - 2985 ET - SIAM Journal of Optimization ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Martin A1 - Aßmann, Denis A1 - Burlacu, Robert A1 - Humpola, Jesco A1 - Joormann, Imke A1 - Kanelakis, Nikolaos A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Oucherif, Djamal A1 - Pfetsch, Marc E. A1 - Schewe, Lars A1 - Schwarz, Robert A1 - Sirvent, Mathias T1 - GasLib – A Library of Gas Network Instances JF - Data N2 - The development of mathematical simulation and optimization models and algorithms for solving gas transport problems is an active field of research. In order to test and compare these models and algorithms, gas network instances together with demand data are needed. The goal of GasLib is to provide a set of publicly available gas network instances that can be used by researchers in the field of gas transport. The advantages are that researchers save time by using these instances and that different models and algorithms can be compared on the same specified test sets. The library instances are encoded in an XML format. In this paper, we explain this format and present the instances that are available in the library. KW - Gas Transport KW - Networks KW - Problem Instances KW - Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Optimization KW - GasLib Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/data2040040 VL - 4 IS - 2 ER -