Abstract
This paper identifies safety concerns that arise from ongoing technical and institutional changes in the Dutch gas sector. The Netherlands has a well-developed gas infrastructure that primarily transports natural gas, although its constituting features are undergoing major changes. We identify three historical developments, and show how (1) ongoing effects of liberalization; (2) earthquakes in the Groningen-area; and (3) commitment to climate goals affect safety. Between trends of ongoing decentralization and a growing variety of gas producers, the most urgent concerns relate to the operation of low- and medium pressure distribution grids. Natural gas is losing its prominent role, leaving system operators faced with trade-offs induced by a declining share of customers. At the same time, responsibilities for new gas technologies are allocated over a growing number of actors. In illustrating how safety practices have evolved in line with incremental technological and institutional developments over the last half century, this article elaborates how sudden changes in constitutional features of infrastructural systems might jeopardize system safety.
Highlights
The gas sector in the Netherlands is facing fundamental challenges
This paper identifies safety concerns that arise from ongoing technical and institutional changes in the Dutch gas sector
While Gasunie is still responsible for grid maintenance and transmission through its subsidiary Gasunie Transport Services (GTS), other functions—such as short-term balancing of demand and supply—are increasingly left to other actors under an incentive structure only coordinated by GTS (Van Dinther and Mulder, 2013)
Summary
The gas sector in the Netherlands is facing fundamental challenges. Incremental and sudden changes render outdated existing safety practices that were developed over the past century. Safety has been investigated with respect to gas quality standardization (Schweitzer and Cagnon, 2011; Zachariah-Wolff et al, 2007), carbon monoxide poisoning (Brunekreef et al, 1982; Onderzoeksraad voor Veiligheid, 2015; Simpson and Calnan, 1973); odorization (Amirbekyan and Stylianos, 2013; Butenko, 2014; Kilgallon et al, 2015; Tempelman and Butenko, 2013); and renewable gasses (De Santoli et al, 2017; KIWA, 2018a; Labidine Messaoudani et al, 2016), but these studies do not take into account ongoing changes in their respective fields.
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