Impact of the European gas network on the operation of Great Britain’s gas and electricity networks

Recent events of natural gas supply disruption in Europe have led to severe consequences of supply shortages to some European Member States. As the United Kingdom increasingly depend on imported gas supply from different sources including Continental Europe, the effect of gas supply disruption in Europe on UK’s gas consumers is in question. This thesis investigated the effect of gas supply disruptions in Europe on the operation of the Great Britain’s gas and electricity network using a set of modelling tools. An optimisation model of the European gas network was developed to assess the resilience of the European gas network to the loss of gas supply through the Ukraine transit pipelines to Europe. The results showed that unserved gas demand occurred in South East Europe. It was shown that additional interconnector capacities of selected pipelines and higher storage withdrawal rate in South East Europe minimised unserved gas demand in South East Europe. A soft-link coupling of the European Gas Network model (EGN) and the Combined Gas and Electricity Network model (CGEN) was developed and used to examine the effect of a 90-day loss of Ukraine transit capacity in Europe on the operation of GB gas and electricity network at a period of limited LNG supply to Europe. The result showed that in a high gas demand situation, industrial customers would experience some amount of unserved gas demand. The effectiveness of the mitigation options to prevent or mitigate unserved gas in GB was analysed using the EGN-CGEN model. Then a cost-benefit assessment tool was used to rank the mitigation options according to the net benefit of reducing the cost of unserved gas demand in GB. It was shown that diversification of gas supply sources and routes in Europe would deliver significant security of supply benefit to GB gas and electricity network