The impact of liquefied natural gas and storage on the EU natural gas infrastructure resilience

As the energy system progresses towards full decarbonization, natural gas could play an important role in it with its relatively low carbon characteristics and its abundant supply. At the core of the paper is a modelling analysis of the European Union (EU) natural gas network resilience in case of s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy (Oxford) 2020-10, Vol.209, p.118367, Article 118367
Main Authors: Sesini, Marzia, Giarola, Sara, Hawkes, Adam D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cost analysis
Energy security
Energy storage
Gas flow
Gas infrastructure
Gas network resilience
Gas storage
Linear programming
Liquefied natural gas
LNG
Natural gas
Pricing
Resilience
Security
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Summary:As the energy system progresses towards full decarbonization, natural gas could play an important role in it with its relatively low carbon characteristics and its abundant supply. At the core of the paper is a modelling analysis of the European Union (EU) natural gas network resilience in case of short-term supply disruption or unexpected increase in demand. The adopted linear programming model solves for the most cost effective transmission of gas flows, capacity and storage utilization in an interconnected EU gas system. Results presented in the paper show a significant increase in liquefied natural gas (LNG) costs (+40%) when commodity price increases (+40%) and LNG prices decreases (−20%), and an equally significant decline in transport and LNG costs (−30%,-50%) when storage volumes varies (−35%,+35%).The analysis highlights a complementary role between LNG and storage in ensuring a cost-effective response to a natural gas supply shock. It also indicates that LNG alone is inadequate in providing system resilience in case of an emergency in supply, stressing the importance of storage in the gas market and its intrinsic value in the system. The study emphasizes the need to further investigate the reliability and value of gas storage to reinforce energy security in Europe. •A new method to assess resilience and security in the EU gas system.•Investigation of a real shock in demand in the gas network.•LNG inadequacy in demand shocks reveals the importance of resilience of the gas network.•LNG and gas storage complementarity highlights the value of gas infrastructure diversification.
ISSN:0360-5442
1873-6785
DOI:10.1016/j.energy.2020.118367