A Method to Aggregate Schemes of Gas Systems for an In-Depth Study of Their Expansion

Abstract

There are about 30 natural gas production and transmission companies operating currently in the Russian Federation. The vast majority of them are interconnected and form the Unified Gas System. It includes gas production, processing, transmission, and underground storage facilities. Various problems in the gas system are solved relying on multilevel modeling and indicators of varying degrees of detail. This generates the need for and relevance of the development of methods for multilevel modeling and aggregation of gas systems. The paper presents an analysis of methodological approaches to the aggregation of schemes of gas systems and their facilities, which are currently available in the world. A method is proposed to aggregate gas systems, which encompasses a procedure for aggregating a real-world gas system, i.e., its representation as a calculated scheme of a smaller size. The study employs the methods of graph theory and aggregation procedures. The proposed method is illustrated by an example of a gas system covering three territorial entities, including 20 consumer nodes, 8 fields, and 14 compressor stations. The proposed methodology is applied to create a database for comprehensive studies of the Unified gas system expansion.