TY - GEN A1 - Hennings, Felix T1 - Benefits and Limitations of Simplified Transient Gas Flow Formulations N2 - Although intensively studied in recent years, the optimization of the transient (time-dependent) control of large real-world gas networks is still out of reach for current state-of-the-art approaches. For this reason, we present further simplifications of the commonly used model, which lead to a linear description of the gas flow on pipelines. In an empirical analysis of real-world data, we investigate the properties of the involved quantities and evaluate the errors made by our simplification. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-39 Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-64570 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Hennings, Felix T1 - Benefits and Limitations of Simplified Transient Gas Flow Formulations T2 - Operations Research Proceedings 2017 N2 - Although intensively studied in recent years, the optimization of the transient (time-dependent) control of large real-world gas networks is still out of reach for current state-of-the-art approaches. For this reason, we present further simplifications of the commonly used model, which lead to a linear description of the gas flow on pipelines. In an empirical analysis of real-world data, we investigate the properties of the involved quantities and evaluate the errors made by our simplification. Y1 - 2018 UR - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_32 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89920-6_32 VL - Operations Research Proceedings SP - 231 EP - 237 PB - Springer, Cham ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoppmann, Kai A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Lenz, Ralf A1 - Gotzes, Uwe A1 - Heinecke, Nina A1 - Spreckelsen, Klaus A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Optimal Operation of Transient Gas Transport Networks T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-23 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-73639 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Yueksel-Erguen, Inci A1 - Zittel, Janina A1 - Wang, Ying A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Lessons learned from gas network data preprocessing N2 - The German high-pressure natural gas transport network consists of thousands of interconnected elements spread over more than 120,000 km of pipelines built during the last 100 years. During the last decade, we have spent many person-years to extract consistent data out of the available sources, both public and private. Based on two case studies, we present some of the challenges we encountered. Preparing consistent, high-quality data is surprisingly hard, and the effort necessary can hardly be overestimated. Thus, it is particularly important to decide which strategy regarding data curation to adopt. Which precision of the data is necessary? When is it more efficient to work with data that is just sufficiently correct on average? In the case studies we describe our experiences and the strategies we adopted to deal with the obstacles and to minimize future effort. Finally, we would like to emphasize that well-compiled data sets, publicly available for research purposes, provide the grounds for building innovative algorithmic solutions to the challenges of the future. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-13 Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-78262 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hennings, Felix T1 - Large-scale empirical study on the momentum equation's inertia term N2 - A common approach to reduce the Euler equations' complexity for the simulation and optimization of gas networks is to neglect small terms that contribute little to the overall equations. An example is the inertia term of the momentum equation since it is said to be of negligible size under real-world operating conditions. However, this justification has always only been based on experience or single sets of artificial data points. This study closes this gap by presenting a large-scale empirical evaluation of the absolute and relative size of the inertia term when operating a real-world gas network. Our data consists of three years of fine-granular state data of one of the largest gas networks in Europe, featuring over 6,000 pipes with a total length of over 10,000 km. We found that there are only 120 events in which a subnetwork consisting of multiple pipes has an inertia term of high significance for more than three minutes. On average, such an event occurs less often than once every ten days. Therefore, we conclude that the inertia term is indeed negligible for real-world transient gas network control problems. T3 - ZIB-Report - 21-08 Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-81881 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hoppmann-Baum, Kai A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Zittel, Janina A1 - Gotzes, Uwe A1 - Spreckelsen, Eva-Maria A1 - Spreckelsen, Klaus A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - An Optimization Approach for the Transient Control of Hydrogen Transport Networks JF - Mathematical Methods of Operations Research Y1 - 2021 IS - Special Issue on Energy Networks ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hoppmann-Baum, Kai A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Lenz, Ralf A1 - Gotzes, Uwe A1 - Heinecke, Nina A1 - Spreckelsen, Klaus A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - Optimal Operation of Transient Gas Transport Networks JF - Optimization and Engineering N2 - In this paper, we describe an algorithmic framework for the optimal operation of transient gas transport networks consisting of a hierarchical MILP formulation together with a sequential linear programming inspired post-processing routine. Its implementation is part of the KOMPASS decision support system, which is currently used in an industrial setting. Real-world gas transport networks are controlled by operating complex pipeline intersection areas, which comprise multiple compressor units, regulators, and valves. In the following, we introduce the concept of network stations to model them. Thereby, we represent the technical capabilities of a station by hand-tailored artificial arcs and add them to network. Furthermore, we choose from a predefined set of flow directions for each network station and time step, which determines where the gas enters and leaves the station. Additionally, we have to select a supported simple state, which consists of two subsets of artificial arcs: Arcs that must and arcs that cannot be used. The goal is to determine a stable control of the network satisfying all supplies and demands. The pipeline intersections, that are represented by the network stations, were initially built centuries ago. Subsequently, due to updates, changes, and extensions, they evolved into highly complex and involved topologies. To extract their basic properties and to model them using computer-readable and optimizable descriptions took several years of effort. To support the dispatchers in controlling the network, we need to compute a continuously updated list of recommended measures. Our motivation for the model presented here is to make fast decisions on important transient global control parameters, i.e., how to route the flow and where to compress the gas. Detailed continuous and discrete technical control measures realizing them, which take all hardware details into account, are determined in a subsequent step. In this paper, we present computational results from the KOMPASS project using detailed real-world data. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11081-020-09584-x VL - 22 SP - 735 EP - 781 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoppmann-Baum, Kai A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Zittel, Janina A1 - Gotzes, Uwe A1 - Spreckelsen, Eva-Maria A1 - Spreckelsen, Klaus A1 - Koch, Thorsten T1 - From Natural Gas towards Hydrogen - A Feasibility Study on Current Transport Network Infrastructure and its Technical Control N2 - This study examines the usability of a real-world, large-scale natural gas transport infrastructure for hydrogen transport. We investigate whether a converted network can transport the amounts of hydrogen necessary to satisfy current energy demands. After introducing an optimization model for the robust transient control of hydrogen networks, we conduct computational experiments based on real-world demand scenarios. Using a representative network, we demonstrate that replacing each turbo compressor unit by four parallel hydrogen compressors, each of them comprising multiple serial compression stages, and imposing stricter rules regarding the balancing of in- and outflow suffices to realize transport in a majority of scenarios. However, due to the reduced linepack there is an increased need for technical and non-technical measures leading to a more dynamic network control. Furthermore, the amount of energy needed for compression increases by 364% on average. T3 - ZIB-Report - 20-27 KW - Hydrogen Transport KW - Hydrogen Infrastructure KW - Network Flows KW - Mixed Integer Programming KW - Energiewende Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-79901 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hennings, Felix T1 - Large-scale empirical study on the momentum equation's inertia term JF - Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering N2 - A common approach to reduce the Euler equations' complexity for the simulation and optimization of gas networks is to neglect small terms that contribute little to the overall equations. An example is the inertia term of the momentum equation, which is said to be of negligible size under real-world operating conditions. However, this justification has always only been based on experience or single sets of artificial data points. This study closes this gap by presenting a large-scale empirical evaluation of the absolute and relative size of the inertia term when operating a real-world gas network. Our data consists of three years of fine-granular state data of one of the largest gas networks in Europe, featuring over 6,000 pipes with a total length of over 10,000 km. We found that there are only 120 events in which a subnetwork consisting of multiple pipes has an inertia term of high significance for more than three minutes. On average, such an event occurs less often than once every ten days. Therefore, we conclude that the inertia term is indeed negligible for real-world transient gas network control problems. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2021.104153 VL - 95 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hennings, Felix A1 - Hoppmann-Baum, Kai A1 - Zittel, Janina T1 - Optimizing transient gas network control for challenging real-world instances using MIP-based heuristics N2 - Optimizing the transient control of gas networks is a highly challenging task. The corresponding model incorporates the combinatorial complexity of determining the settings for the many active elements as well as the non-linear and non-convex nature of the physical and technical principles of gas transport. In this paper, we present the latest improvements of our ongoing work to solve this problem for real-world, large-scale problem instances: By adjusting our mixed-integer non-linear programming model regarding the gas compression capabilities in the network, we reflect the technical limits of the underlying units more accurately while maintaining a similar overall model size. In addition, we introduce a new algorithmic approach that is based on splitting the complexity of the problem by first finding assignments for discrete variables and then determining the continuous variables as locally optimal solution of the corresponding non-linear program. For the first task, we design multiple different heuristics based on concepts for general time-expanded optimization problems that find solutions by solving a sequence of sub-problems defined on reduced time horizons. To demonstrate the competitiveness of our approach, we test our algorithm on particularly challenging historic demand scenarios. The results show that high-quality solutions are obtained reliably within short solving times, making the algorithm well-suited to be applied at the core of time-critical industrial applications. T3 - ZIB-Report - 22-08 Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-86842 SN - 1438-0064 ER -