Optimization of transmission lines congestion management in integrated electricity and natural gas multi‐carrier energy systems

Abstract

The increasing interactivity between energy carrier networks such as electrical, natural gas (NG), and heating can be appropriately used for improving the operation optimality along with overcoming some challenges of those systems. With such a view, this paper studies the practical issue of power transmission lines congestion management in integrated multicarrier energy systems (MCESs) and makes a comparison with the only electrical operation mode. The MCES consisting of electrical and NG network infrastructures with exchanged energy between them is modelled by considering the several local energy hubs and their electrical and heat loads. Rescheduling of energy sources (power plants and gas wells) and demand side management in both electrical and NG networks have been utilized as the two important tools in the developed congestion alleviation framework. The proposed method confirms that the provided flexibility in the integrated operation of the MCESs can lead to a remarkable reduction in the congestion management cost index. Implementing the proposed congestion management framework on an assumed test MCES with a combined 39‐bus New England power system and 20‐node Belgium NG system demonstrates its effectiveness and applicability for the system operators.