A Methodology to Assess the Gas Supply Capacity and Gas Supply Reliability of a Natural Gas Pipeline Network System

Natural gas pipeline network system is a critical infrastructure connecting gas resource and market, which is composed with the transmission pipeline system, underground gas storage (UGS) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal demand. A methodology to assess the gas supply capacity and gas supply reliability of a natural gas pipeline network system is developed in this paper. Due to random failure and maintenance action of the components in the pipeline network system, the system can be in a number of operating states. The methodology is able to simulate the state transition process and the duration of each operating state based on a Monte Carlo approach. After the system transits to other states, the actual flow rate will change accordingly. The hydraulic analysis, which includes thermal-hydraulic simulation and maximum flow algorithm, is applied to analyze the change law of the actual flow rate. By combining the hydraulic analysis into the simulation of the state transition process, gas supply capacity of the pipeline network system is quantified. Furthermore, considering the uncertainty of market demand, the load duration curve (LDC) method is employed to predict the amount of demand for each consumer node. The gas supply reliability is then calculated by comparing the gas supply capacity with market demand. Finally, a detailed procedure for gas supply capacity and gas supply reliability assessment of a natural gas pipeline network system is presented, and its feasibility is confirmed with a case study. In the case study, the impact of market demand uncertainty on gas supply reliability is investigated in detail.