A System to Evaluate Gas Network Capacities: Concepts and Implementation

Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-67438
• In 2005 the European Union liberalized the gas market with a disruptive change and decoupled trading of natural gas from its transport. The gas is now transported by independent so-called transmissions system operators or 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 the maximum possible capacities at each entry and exit such that any resulting gas flow can be realized by the network. The revenue from selling these capacities more than one billion Euro in Germany alone, but overestimating the capacity might compromise the security of supply. Therefore, evaluating the available transport capacities is extremely important to the TSOs. This is a report on a large project in mathematical optimization, set out to develop a new toolset for evaluating gas network capacities. The goals and the challenges as they occurred in the project are described, as well as the developments and design decisions taken to meet the requirements.

Author: Benjamin Hiller, Thorsten KochORCiD, Lars Schewe, Robert Schwarz, Jonas SchweigerORCiD ZIB-Report 90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Bxx Operations research and management science / 90B90 Case-oriented studies 90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Cxx Mathematical programming [See also 49Mxx, 65Kxx] / 90C90 Applications of mathematical programming 2018/03/01 ZIB-Report (18-11) 1438-0064 An earlier version of this report is available as ZR 17-03 at https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-zib/frontdoor/index/index/docId/6193.