Abstract
Given they are two critical infrastructure areas, the security of electricity and gas networks is highly important due to potential multifaceted social and economic impacts. Unexpected errors or sabotage can lead to blackouts, causing a significant loss for the public, businesses, and governments. Climate change and an increasing number of consequent natural disasters (e.g., bushfires and floods) are other emerging network resilience challenges. In this paper, we used network science to examine the topological resilience of national energy networks with two case studies of Australian gas and electricity networks. To measure the fragility and resilience of these energy networks, we assessed various topological features and theories of percolation. We found that both networks follow the degree distribution of power-law and the characteristics of a scale-free network. Then, using these models, we conducted node and edge removal experiments. The analysis identified the most critical nodes that can trigger cascading failure within the network upon a fault. The analysis results can be used by the network operators to improve network resilience through various mitigation strategies implemented on the identified critical nodes.
Highlights
This paper focuses on the Australian electricity and gas networks and aims to analyse their robustness against cascading failure
We aim to identify how the Australian gas and electricity network is formed and what size clusters exist within the network
This paper focused on Australia’s critical infrastructure energy networks, including electricity and gas
Summary
Power grids are considered one of the most complex networks in the modern era. The complexity of power networks is increasing due to the transformation that these networks are undergoing due to factors such as renewable energy uptake and decentralisation. Given their role as critical societal infrastructure, maintaining a high level of resilience in these networks against any fault that can lead to blackouts is vital. Even if rare, such events entail catastrophic socio-economic and life threats. Energy network resilience has been given greater importance in researching blackouts and obtaining more resilient power networks for preventing future devastating events
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