TY - INPR A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Schewe, Lars A1 - Schwarz, Robert A1 - Schweiger, Jonas T1 - A System to Evaluate Gas Network Capacities: Concepts and Implementation T2 - EJOR N2 - Since 2005, the gas market in the European Union is liberalized and the trading of natural gas is decoupled from its transport. The transport is done by so-called transmissions system operators (TSOs). The market model established by the European Union views the gas transmission network as a black box, providing shippers (gas traders and consumers) the opportunity to transport gas from any entry to any exit. TSOs are required to offer maximum independent capacities at each entry and exit such that the resulting gas flows can be realized by the network without compromising security of supply. Therefore, evaluating the available transport capacities is extremely important to the TSOs. This paper gives an overview of the toolset for evaluating gas network capacities that has been developed within the ForNe project, a joint research project of seven research partners initiated by Open Grid Europe, Germany's biggest TSO. While most of the relevant mathematics is described in the book "Evaluating Gas Network Capacities", this article sketches the system as a whole, describes some developments that have taken place recently, and gives some details about the current implementation. Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Walther, Tom T1 - Improving branching for disjunctive polyhedral models using approximate convex decompositions N2 - Disjunctive sets arise in a variety of optimization models and much esearch has been devoted to obtain strong relaxations for them. This paper focuses on the evaluation of the relaxation during the branch-and-bound search process. We argue that the branching possibilities (\ie binary variables) of the usual formulations are unsuitable to obtain strong bounds early in the search process as they do not capture the overall shape of the the entire disjunctive set. To analyze and exploit the shape of the disjunctive set we propose to compute a hierarchy of approximate convex decompositions and show how to extend the known formulations to obtain improved branching behavior. KW - disjunctive set KW - convex hull reformulation KW - branch-and-bound KW - approximate convex decomposition Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - INPR A1 - Domschke, Pia A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Lang, Jens A1 - Tischendorf, Caren T1 - Modellierung von Gasnetzwerken: Eine Übersicht N2 - Mit dieser Übersicht wollen wir eine Zusammenstellung von unterschiedlichen Modellen zur Beschreibung des Gasflusses in Netzwerken bereitstellen, um den Einstieg in das Thema zu erleichtern. Besonderes Augenmerk wird dabei auf die der Modellierung inneliegende hierarchische Struktur und die detaillierte Beschreibung einzelner Bauteile wie Ventile und Kompressoren gelegt. Daneben finden sich ebenfalls Netzmodellklassen, die auf rein algebraische Relationen aufbauen. Am Ende geben wir einen kurzen Überblick über grundlegende numerische Verfahren und Konzepte zur Behandlung von hyperbolischen Bilanzgleichungen. Wir erheben keinen Anspruch auf Vollständigkeit und verweisen an vielen Stellen auf die bestehende Literatur. Die Idee eines Modellkataloges ist uns im Rahmen der Antragstellung zum SFB/Transregio 154 „Mathematische Modellierung, Simulation und Optimierung am Beispiel von Gasnetzwerken“ gekommen. Wir möchten an dieser Stelle die Förderung durch die DFG dankend erwähnen. KW - Euler-Gleichungen, isotherme Euler-Gleichungen, Modellhierarchie, Netzelemente Y1 - 2017 VL - 2717 ER - TY - INPR A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Saitenmacher, René A1 - Walther, Tom T1 - Analysis of operating modes of complex compressor stations N2 - We consider the modeling of operation modes for complex compressor stations (i.e., ones with several in- or outlets) in gas networks. In particular, we propose a refined model that allows to precompute tighter relaxations for each operation mode. These relaxations may be used to strengthen the compressor station submodels in gas network optimization problems. We provide a procedure to obtain the refined model from the input data for the original model. This procedure is based on a nontrivial reduction of the graph representing the gas flow through the compressor station in an operation mode. KW - model reformulation KW - bound tightening KW - multi-way compressor station KW - flow patterns Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - INPR A1 - Walther, Tom A1 - Hiller, Benjamin A1 - Saitenmacher, René T1 - Polyhedral 3D Models for compressors in gas networks N2 - Compressor machines are crucial elements in a gas transmission network, required to compensate for the pressure loss caused by friction in the pipes. Modelling all physical and technical details of a compressor machine involves a large amount of nonlinearity, which makes it hard to use such models in the optimization of large-scale gas networks. In this paper, we are going to describe a modelling approach for the operating range of a compressor machine, starting from a physical reference model and resulting in a polyhedral representation in the 3D space of mass flow throughput as well as in- and outlet pressure. KW - gas compressor modeling KW - polyhedral model KW - accuracy KW - z factor Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Walther, Tom A1 - Hiller, Benjamin T1 - Modelling compressor stations in gas networks N2 - Gas networks are an important application area for optimization. When considering long-range transmission, compressor stations play a crucial role in these applications. The purpose of this report is to collect and systematize the models used for compressor stations in the literature. The emphasis is on recent work on simple yet accurate polyhedral models that may replace more simplified traditional models without increasing model complexity. The report also describes an extension of the compressor station data available in GasLib (http://gaslib.zib.de/) with the parameters of these models. KW - gas compressor modeling KW - compressor station KW - polyhedral model KW - MINLP model KW - nonlinear model Y1 - 2017 ER -