Linear flow modelling of an integrated energy system on a national scale in 2050

An increasing part of European electricity is provided by renewable sources, whose output varies considerably. In order to offset these variations, gas can be used as an auxiliary source of energy for power production, but extra power can also be used to produce hydrogen or methane for storage. As a consequence, gas and power networks are growing more and more interdependent and thus need to be modelled together in order to make meaningful predictions. A growing body of literature deals with the modelling and simulation of such coupled networks, but the main focus of most sources is accuracy. On the other hand, Gasunie and TenneT’s Infrastructure Outlook report aimed to study hourly snapshots of a coupled network over one year, in a variety of different scenarios. Therefore, a simplified and computationally inexpensive model was needed. Literature dealing with such models is lacking, so a linear model consisting of transport load minimization was constructed for this purpose. It was used for both gas and power simulations, but it is inadequate for the latter.In this thesis, the transport load model is combined with the standard DC model of power flow in order to obtain more accurate results. The resulting combined linear model is tested on small sample networks, showing that it is functional given a set of modelling assumptions. In addition, the transport load model is compared to the DC model in a sample set of Dutch power networks. A large difference is observed between the two, confirming that there is no reason to use transport load as a model for electricity. Further research is needed to evaluate the accuracy of the transport load model for gas.Applied Mathematics | Computational Science and Engineerin