Situation awareness of electricity-gas coupled systems with a multi-port equivalent gas network model

Abstract

Natural gas has become one of the major fuel sources for power systems in many parts of the world due to the increasing deployment of gas-fired generators. However, under the current operational procedures, the gas system operator is unable to provide detailed network data to the power system operator due to information privacy, and thus, the power system operator has very limited knowledge of the situation variation in the gas system. To better represent the interaction between electric and gas systems and increase situation awareness, a multi-port equivalent model of gas networks and electricity-to-gas sensitivity factors is proposed in this paper by transplanting the theory of electric analogy and reduced equivalence from electric circuit analysis to gas system analysis. The multi-port equivalent model enables the gas system operator to provide the reduced equivalent boundary information of the gas system without revealing detailed network data. Based on this information, electricity-to-gas sensitivity factors are calculated by power system operators. These factors indicate “where, when and how much” the status of the gas system will change as a function of changes in power generation. Both the equivalent model and sensitivity factors have explicit matrix formulations and can contribute to improving power system operators’ awareness of varying conditions in the gas system. Several numerical tests are presented to prove the accuracy and robustness of the proposed models.