Determining the Maximum Hourly Demand of Natural Gas for Large Suppliers

Abstract

This article deals with the determination of the maximum hourly energy consumption of large (municipal) natural gas suppliers using the Monte Carlo simulation method. To ensure an adequate supply for all their customers, suppliers need to purchase capacities in geological storage systems. If, due to cost considerations or inaccurate predictions, the chosen capacities are smaller than the actual consumption, additional costs are incurred for the procurement of short-term quantities of gas, e.g. from the balancing energy market. It is therefore necessary to formulate and solve an optimisation problem, which is done as described in the following by means of a simulation after modelling all required quantity values and price data. The aim is to minimise the structure costs—i.e. the fixed capacity costs and the variable balancing energy costs—by selecting the most appropriate hourly energy supply level. Since the selection of the storage capacity generally has far-reaching financial implications, the statistics-based simulation method described in the following is intended to provide the companies concerned with a reliable basis for decision-making.