Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Gas supply reliability analysis of a natural gas pipeline system considering T

the effects of underground gas storages
⁎ ⁎
Weichao Yua, , Jing Gonga, , Shangfei Songa, Weihe Huangb, Yichen Lia, Jie Zhanga,
Bingyuan Honga, Ye Zhangc, Kai Wena, Xu Duana
a
National Engineering Laboratory for Pipeline Safety, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China
b
China National Petroleum Corporation/PetroChina Company Limited, Beijing 100007, China
c
China Liaohe Petroleum Engineering Co., Ltd., Panjin 124000, China

H I GH L IG H T S

• AThree
methodology is developed to assess gas supply reliability of a pipeline system.
• The gasaspects of uncertainty and system’s hydraulic characteristic are considered.
• The uncertainty
supply strategy of the natural gas pipeline system is proposed.
• in the gas injection/production capacity is considered.

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Underground gas storage plays a significant role in ensuring gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline sys-
Natural gas pipeline system tems. However, the specific hydraulic characteristics of the underground gas storage and the uncertainties in its
Gas supply reliability gas injection/production capacity are generally overlooked when evaluating the gas supply reliability.
Uncertainty Therefore, an integrated methodology to assess gas supply reliability of the natural gas pipeline system is de-
Underground gas storage
veloped in this study, and three aspects of uncertainty and hydraulic characteristic of the natural gas pipeline
Gas injection/production capacity
system are both considered. Based on system’s gas supply strategy, the amounts of gas supplied by the trans-
mission pipeline system and required by the consumers are calculated firstly. The underground gas storage is
then employed to regulate the supply-demand imbalance between the transmission pipeline system and market
demand by performing its gas injection/production function. Moreover, the operational reliability of the un-
derground gas storage is evaluated to determine whether it is able to complete the specified gas injection/
production task. Then, the total daily amount of gas supplied to the consumers, is obtained, and two indicators
proposed to quantify the gas supply reliability are then calculated. Finally, the expected gas supply reliability is
assessed based on a large number of Monte Carlo trials. Moreover, the methodology is applied to a simplified gas
pipeline system to confirm its feasibility, and system’s ability to satisfy the consumers demand is evaluated, and
the weakest consumer node is identified. Furthermore, the gas supply reliability is overestimated without
considering the uncertainties in the underground gas storage’s gas injection/production capacity.

1. Introduction
The critical role of natural gas in the energy market highlights the
significance of securely satisfying market demands [1]. Natural gas
pipeline system (NGPS) is a critical infrastructure connecting gas re-
sources and market demands [2,3], which is composed of the natural
gas transmission pipeline system (NGTPS) and its supporting facilities
such as underground gas storage (UGS). The schematic of a NGPS is
shown in Fig. 1. The gas supply reliability of the NGPS is directly re-
lated to the security of gas supply. Furthermore, the research on gas
supply reliability performs an important function in today’s energy
industry and promote the optimal use of energy resource. The scientific
and accurate evaluation of the gas supply reliability is one of the de-
cision-making basis for safeguarding the security of gas supply and
optimizing the operation and management of the pipeline system and
the use of the energy resources. Therefore, the objective of this study is

⁎
Corresponding authors.
E-mail addresses: cupwhut@163.com (W. Yu), ydgj@cup.edu.cn (J. Gong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113418
Received 11 January 2019; Received in revised form 11 May 2019; Accepted 30 May 2019
Available online 06 June 2019
0306-2619/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

Nomenclature t time (h)

D market demand (Nm3) Abbreviations

k the system operating state (–)
N maximum number of Monte Carlo trials (–) COV coefficient of variation
Pmin minimum required pressure of consumer node (MPa) DSM demand side management
Rsystem gas supply reliability over the mission time (–) LDC load duration curve
Rand the random variable sampled from the uniform distribu- NGPS natural gas pipeline system
tion U [0, 1] NGTPS natural gas transmission pipeline system
T mission time (day) UGS underground gas storage
X gas supply of the natural gas pipeline system (Nm3)

Fig. 1. The schematic of the NGPS.

to present a scientific methodology for the gas supply reliability as-
sessment of the NGPS.
Actually, the gas supply reliability of the NGPS is determined by the
system’s gas supply and market demand. Generally, the gas supply of a
NGPS consists of two parts, including natural gas supplied by the
NGTPS and supplemented by the UGS. In order to provide consumers
with sufficient natural gas to cover their demand, the NGPS applies the
following gas supply strategy as shown in Fig. 2, and the explanations
are presented as follows. Obviously, in order to provide consumers with
adequate amount of natural gas without interruption or reductions, the
balancing of supply and demand is required. The UGS can play a sig-
nificant role in the balancing process and ensuring gas supply security,
by performing its gas injection/production functions [4].
disciplinary issue of importance of security of gas supply. However,
most of the previous or empirical operation/studies usually use the
classical reliability evaluation methods to evaluate the gas supply re-
liability, and only focus on the study of system reliability theory and
computer simulation, while ignoring the hydraulic analysis of the
NGPS. For example, the hydraulic characteristics of the NGTPS and UGS
are often ignored in the most previous models and methods.
Moreover, there are three aspects of uncertainty in the process of
supplying natural gas to the targeted market by the NGPS, which are
the uncertainties in the gas supply capacity of the NGTPS, market de-
mand, and gas injection/production capacity of UGS. The difficulty in

Number 1: The NGTPS is first used to supply natural gas to con-

sumers.
Number 2: If the gas supply of the NGTPS is greater than the market
demand, the excess natural gas is injected into the UGS.
Number 3: If the gas supply of the NGTPS is less than the market
demand, the UGS is employed to supplement the insufficient natural
gas amount.
Number 4: The UGS will perform a gas production function.
Number 5: The UGS will perform a gas injection function.

Actually, the study on gas supply reliability of the NGPS is a multi-

Fig. 2. The supply strategy of a NGPS.

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W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

gas supply reliability evaluation is that it is necessary to consider both
the three aspects of uncertainty and hydraulic characteristic of the
NGPS. For simplicity, the previous studies often ignore hydraulic
characteristic when evaluating the gas supply reliability of the complex
infrastructure, such as natural gas pipeline system. The three un-
certainties are often ignored in the previous gas supply reliability as-
sessments, especially the uncertainties in UGS’s gas injection/produc-
tion capacity.
Up to now, there have been more than 40 incidents in the under-
ground gas storage [5]. Because of the failure and implementation of
corrective maintenance in the underground gas storage, the gas injec-
tion/production capacity of the underground gas storage is stochastic.
In addition to this, the inherent random nature of the operating para-
meters and material parameters can also lead to uncertainty in the gas
injection/production capacity. Due to the uncertainty of the gas injec-
tion/production capacity of the underground gas storage, whether the
underground gas storage can complete the specified gas injection/
production task is uncertain, which is the significant threat to the se-
curity of gas supply, especially in the peak demand period. Therefore,
the consideration of the uncertainty of the gas injection/production
capacity is a key issue when assess the gas supply reliability of natural
gas pipeline system. Hydraulic analysis of the underground gas storage
plays a very important role in taking the uncertainty of the gas injec-
tion/production capacity into account.
Furthermore, to clearly present previous methodologies, the de-
tailed review of the state of the art in the field of gas supply reliability
assessment is performed as follows, and the limitation of the classical
works in this field is summarized in Table 1.
After a severe supply crisis in January 2009 due to the Russia-
Ukraine dispute, a variety of evaluation models has been developed to
analyze the gas supply security of the European gas transmission
system. In Ref. [6], the authors developed a probabilistic model to
study gas supply security of a natural gas network, and the model was
implemented in the software tool ProGasNet. A model named
MC-GENERCIS was proposed by Monforti and Szikszai in Ref. [7], and
it was used to analyze the adequacy of the European gas transmission
system during normal and special operating conditions. In Ref. [8], the
same authors of Ref. [7] proposed a model named GEMFLOW to im-
prove the MC-GENERCIS, and the time evaluation of the gas crisis was
considered in the GEMFLOW. By employing the GEMFLOW, the pos-
sible outcomes of a supply disruption and the minimized losses during
an emergency, were analyzed. In Ref. [9], the GEMFLOW model was
used to evaluate the progress being made to improve security of the gas
supply at the European level in the period 2009–2014. In Ref. [10], a
linear programming model was used to study the impact of the Ukraine
transit capacity on gas supply from Russia to Europe, and the gas supply
security under two demand scenarios was evaluated. In Ref. [11], the
impact of a natural gas supply interruption on the EU natural gas
demand satisfaction has been investigated. In Ref. [12], a novel gas
system model was developed and applied to simulate the impact of
Nord Stream 2 and LNG on the security of supply in the European gas
network of 2030. A dispatch model named TIGER-model [13,14],
which was developed by the Cologne Institute of Energy Economics,
was employed to identify the impact of two pipeline projects named
Nabucco and South Stream on the security of a natural gas supply. In
the above research, the UGS model with a constant value of the with-
drawal capacity was integrated into the gas supply security assessment,
but the specific hydraulic characteristic of the UGS has never been
considered.
In addition to the assessment of the gas supply reliability of the
European gas supply network, the supply reliability of the combined GB
gas and electricity network was assessed by a sequential Monte Carlo
model, and the interdependency between the gas and electricity net-
work was taken into account. Moreover, two levels of gas storage ca-
pacity were calculated to evaluate the UGS’s impact on the reliability of
energy supplies [15]. In Ref. [16], a methodology to assess the relia-
bility of the pipeline network was presented, which was applicable for
district heating, gas and oil supply networks. Moreover, the influence of
the potential failures on the security of energy supply was analyzed. In
Ref. [17], the impact of a disruption events in coupled gas and elec-
tricity transmission networks on the security of energy supply was
quantified by a model named SAInt. The importance of the hydraulic
characteristic of the NGTPS, especially the effect of line pack, was
stressed. In Refs. [18] and [19], the failure probability of gas supply
was estimated using the central moment method and data-driven
model, respectively. In Refs. [20,21], an evaluation method was de-
veloped to calculate the gas supply reliability of natural gas pipeline
systems without considering the effect of the UGS. In Ref. [22], in order
to evaluate gas supply reliability of the natural gas pipeline network
system, an integrated systematic method was developed, and the
method was further applied by the authors to assess the vulnerability of
pipeline networks [23]. Gas supply reliability of the Transpetro
Southeast gas supply network in the period 2005–2007 [24] and the
Brazilian integrated gas supply network in 2010 [25], were quantified.
In Refs. [26,27], the methodology to calculate the gas supply reliability
of the NGTPS, was developed, and the uncertainties in the supply ca-
pacity and market demand are both considered. In Refs. [28–31],
ecological network analysis has been employed to simulate the natural
gas supply system in China and the systematic evaluation of Chinese
natural gas supply security was also evaluated.
While a considerable amount of research has been carried out to
assess the gas supply reliability of NGPSs, the effects of the UGS have
been ignored in Refs. [20,21,24–26,28–31], even though the im-
portance of the UGS on the gas supply reliability has been identified by
many researchers. Although few researchers have considered the role of
the UGS in the gas supply reliability of NGPSs [6–8,10,11,13–15,22],

Table 1
The limitation of the previous models and methods.
References Limitation

Ref. [6] Component maintainability, hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and UGS, and market demand uncertainty have been ignored
Refs. [7,8], Refs. [10,11], and Refs. [13,14] Hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and UGS and uncertainties in the gas supply capacity of the NGTPS, market demand, and gas
injection/production capacity of the UGS have been ignored
Refs. [12,17] Uncertainties in the gas supply capacity of the NGTPS, market demand, and gas injection/production capacity of the UGS have
been ignored
Ref. [15] Hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and UGS, and the uncertainties in the gas injection/production capacity of the UGS have
been ignored
Refs. [18–21] The effect of the line pack of the NGTPS and the effect of the UGS have been ignored
Ref. [22] Hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and UGS, and the uncertainties in the gas injection/production capacity of the UGS have
been ignored
Refs. [16,24,25] The uncertainties in the market demand and the effect of the UGS have been ignored
Refs. [26,27] The effect of the UGS has never been considered
Refs. [28–31] Hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and uncertainties in gas supply capacity of the NGTPS and market demand and the effect of
the UGS have been ignored

3
W. Yu, et al.
current knowledge suggests that the specific hydraulic characteristics of
the UGS and uncertainties in its gas injection/production capacity, have
never been considered.
To overcome these deficiencies, an integrated methodology to assess
the gas supply reliability of NGPSs is developed in this study, and three
aspects of uncertainty and hydraulic characteristic of the NGPS are both
considered in the methodology, especially hydraulic characteristics of
the UGS and uncertainties in its the gas injection/production capacity.
Based on the evaluation results, the corresponding operational and
maintenance decisions and plans can be formulated to better ensure
energy security and optimize pipeline operation and energy resource
utilization. Furthermore, the solution to this research question can
promote the development of reliability disciplines in the natural gas
pipeline industry.
The central point of the methodology is the calculation of a system’s
gas supply and the prediction of market demand, which are integrated
into a single Monte Carlo simulation. During each Monte Carlo trial, the
amount of natural gas supplied by the NGTPS and required by con-
sumers is first calculated. Thereafter, the supply-demand imbalance
between the NGTPS and market demand is computed, and the UGS is
adopted to regulate the imbalance by performing the specific gas in-
jection/production tasks. Moreover, considering uncertainties in the
UGS’s gas injection/production capacity, the operational reliability of
the UGS is evaluated to determine whether the UGS is able to complete
Fig. 3. The flowchart of the methodology.
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Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418
specified tasks. Then, the total amount of natural gas supplied by the
NGPS to the consumers is computed, and two indicators proposed to
quantify the gas supply reliability are evaluated in each Monte Carlo
trial. Finally, the expected gas supply reliability over the mission time is
obtained based on N (a large number of) Monte Carlo trials.
The organization of this study is as follows. Section 2 presents a
detailed description of the methodology developed in this study. A case
study to illustrate the feasibility of this methodology is presented in
Section 3. Section 4 concludes this paper and demonstrates further
work for this study.
2. Methodology
Gas supply reliability, Rsystem, of the NGPS is the system’s ability to
provide consumers with an adequate amount of natural gas at sufficient
pressure. Two indicators are proposed to quantify the gas supply re-
liability from two perspectives: the quantity and the time. The mathe-
matical expression is given as follows.
T
∑i = 1 Ci
Rsystem =
T (1)
where i is the moment, day; from the perspective of quantity,
⎧1, Xi ≥ Di 1, Xi ≥ Di
Ci = Xi while from the perspective of time, Ci = ⎧ ; Xi
⎨ Di , else ⎨
⎩ 0, else
⎩
W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

2.1. Calculation of the gas supply of the NGTPS

Fig. 4. The process for predicting the market demand.
is the gas supply of the NGPS for the ith day; Di is the market demand for
the ith day; T is the mission time, day.
Actually, the gas supply, X, and market demand, D, within the
mission time are both uncertain. Therefore, accurately describing the
gas supply and market demand and considering their uncertainties are
the keys to the gas supply reliability assessment of the NGPS. With the
intent of assessing the gas supply reliability, a methodology is devel-
oped in this study, which is divided into four parts: the calculation of
the gas supply of the NGTPS, the prediction of the market demand,
evaluation of the UGS’s operational reliability, and the assessment of
the gas supply reliability. The approach’s methodological steps are il-
lustrated in Fig. 3 and explained in the following sections.
In Sections 2.1 and 2.2, the calculation process of the gas supply of
the NGTPS and prediction process of market demand, are described,
respectively. The daily amounts of natural gas supplied by the NGTPS
and required by consumers are obtained in these processes.
In Section 2.3, the supply-demand imbalance between the NGTPS
and market demand is computed. Therefore, the injection-production
task of the UGS is specified. Thereafter, the operational reliability of the
UGS is evaluated to determine whether the UGS is able to complete the
required gas injection-production task.
Then, the daily amount of natural gas supplied by the NGPS to
consumers is obtained, and two proposed indicators are calculated in
each Monte Carlo trial. Finally, based on N (a large number of) Monte
Carlo trials, the expected gas supply reliability over the mission time is
obtained (Section 2.4).
It should be noted that the failure and repair rates of the mechanical
components in the NGTPS are the basis of the gas supply calculation.
Estimating the failure and repair rates, belongs to the category of me-
chanical reliability. The descriptions of mechanical reliability are not in
the scope of this study.
In the NGPS, the NGTPS is first used to supply natural gas to cover
market demand. The amount of gas supplied by the NGTPS is usually
stochastic over the mission time due to the uncertainty in the system’s
operating state and the system’s dynamic behavior (also called the ef-
fect of line pack). The uncertainty of a system’s operating state will
make the system transit to other states stochastically, and the system’s
dynamic behavior will lead to a gradual change in the gas supply flow
rate after system transit to other states [17]. Therefore, Monte Carlo
approach [32,33] is used in this methodology to simulate the state
transition process and the uncertainty of the system’s operating state is
considered in this process. Two conditional probabilities are defined in
the simulation process, namely, T (t|t ′, k = m) dt , and,
C (k = n|t , k = m) . T (t|t ′, k = m) dt is the conditional probability of the
next transition of the system occurs between t and t + dt, when the
previous transition has occurred at time t’ and the system has entered in
the state k = m. C (k = n|t , k = m) is the condition probability that the
system enters in the state k = n when the system is already in k = m,
and the transition had occurred at time t. The state transition process is
simulated by sampling the moment of the next state transition, t, from
T (t|t ′, k = m) dt , and the arrival state, k = n, from C (k = n|t , k = m) .
The sampling is repeated until the mission time is reached. According to
the simulation results, all possible operating states which appear within
the mission time, T, times of occurrence for the specific operating state,
k, and the duration when the system is in state, k, are all obtained.
To determine the change law of the flow rate after system transit to
other states, the transient hydraulic analysis integrated the control
modes and constraints of the non-pipe facilities is applied, which is
implemented in a commercial software SPS (Stoner Pipeline Simulator).
The hydraulic characteristic of the NGTPS and system’s dynamic be-
havior are considered in this process. The principle of the control modes
is to ensure that the amount of natural gas supplied to the consumers is
maximum when the state transition occurs, and the control modes in-
clude flow control stage and pressure control stage.
Finally, by combining the transient hydraulic analysis with the state
transition process simulation and discretizing the time at one-day in-
tervals, the daily amount of gas supplied by the NGTPS to the con-
sumers is obtained. Furthermore, the details of the gas supply calcula-
tion of the NGTPS can refer to the previous published works by Yu et al.
[27].
2.2. Prediction of the gas demand of the targeted market
An important consideration for a more realistic evaluation of the gas
supply reliability of the NGPS, is the market demand uncertainty.
Considering the market demand uncertainty, demand side analysis of
the targeted market is implemented to determine the law of seasonal
and daily fluctuations and predict the daily amount of market demand.
The process of predicting the market demand is described in the flow
chart presented in Fig. 4, and the details are described as follows.
Generally, natural gas has been widely used in such applications as
urban gas, industrial fuel, natural gas power generation, and the natural
gas chemical industry. Each consumer type has its unique demand
characteristics [34], and a brief summary of the key features of the
demand by these consumers is listed in Table 2.

Table 2
Key features of the different consumer types.
Consumer type Demand characteristic

Urban gas
Industrial fuel
Natural gas power generation
Natural gas chemical industry
Severe seasonal and daily fluctuations, strongly dependent on weather conditions, increasing consumption in lower temperatures and in winter
Less temperature sensitive, relatively less fluctuations and those fluctuations can be ignored
Severe seasonal and daily fluctuations, strongly dependent on weather conditions, increasing consumption in higher temperatures and in
summer
Less temperature sensitive, relatively fewer fluctuations and those fluctuations can be ignored

5
W. Yu, et al.
On the basis of the demand characteristic of each consumer type
and its proportion in total gas consumption, the mission time (one year)
can be divided into different periods. Dividing the mission time into
different periods reasonably is important in predicting the amount of
market demand. Take the natural gas market in Beijing as an example,
urban gas consumption on average is 47.27% of that of natural gas,
followed by natural gas power generation (47.02%) and industrial fuel
(5.71%). Moreover, the monthly imbalanced factor of urban gas, nat-
ural gas power generation, and industrial fuel is shown in Fig. 5, the
data comes from the report [35]. The monthly imbalanced factor of the
total demand is then calculated according to the monthly imbalanced
factor of each consumption type and their proportions to the total gas
consumption. The calculated result is also presented in Fig. 5. Ac-
cording to Fig. 5, the mission time (one year) can be divided into three
periods (1 April–30 June and 1 October–31 October of the low demand
period; 1 March–31 March, 1 July–31 August, and 1 November–30
November of the average demand period; 1 December–28 February of
the peak demand period). Moreover, the load duration curve (LDC)
technique is applied to estimate the market demand for each demand
period.
The LDC shows the percentage of time or duration interval, for
which a given value of market demand is equaled or exceeded a par-
ticular demand level [36–39]. Moreover, the probability, P(d), that the
market demand, D, is less than or equal to a certain demand level, d,
can be determined based on the properties of the LDC. The probability,
P(d), is a cumulative distribution function and can be described by
certain probability distributions. Therefore, the daily amount of natural
gas required by the consumers can be predicted by means of sampling
the random number from the probability, P(d), and the market demand
uncertainty can be considered in this process. The details of the LDC
technique can refer to the previous published works by Yu et al. [26]. It
should be pointed out that the external variables affecting the market
demand, which include calendar-related and weather-related factors as
well as demographic, economic factors, and the parameters character-
izing the building [40,41], cannot been taken into consideration.
2.3. Assessment of the operational reliability of the UGS
Because of the uncertainties both in the gas supply of the NGTPS
and the market demand, the amounts of gas supplied by the NGTPS and
required by the consumers are usually unbalanced. Underground gas
storage (UGS), as a key component of a NGPS, plays great roles in
regulating the imbalance. According to statistical data from the
International Gas Union (IGU), about 630 UGSs were in operation
around the world by the end of 2014, and 81% of the UGSs were in
depleted oil/gas reservoirs. Therefore, the UGS in a depleted reservoir
is considered in this methodology, and the schematic diagram of the
UGS in a depleted reservoir is shown in Fig. 6.
On the basis of Sections 2.1 and 2.2, the gas supply of the NGTPS
and market demand for each day are obtained, and the supply-demand
imbalance between the NGTPS and market demand is then computed.
Therefore, the gas injection-production task for the UGS is determined.
However, the capacity of the UGS to perform the specified gas injec-
tion/production task is stochastic, which can be reflected by its op-
erational reliability. In this study, the uncertainty of UGS’s gas injec-
tion/production capacity means whether the UGS can complete the
specified gas injection/production task is uncertain. The uncertainties
in the gas injection/production capacity result from: (1) the inherent
random nature of the operating parameters and material parameters,
(2) random failure and maintenance activities of the components in the
UGS.
Therefore, according to the evaluation results of the UGS’s opera-
tional reliability, whether the specified gas injection/production task is
completed or not can be determined. Therefore, the integration method
proposed in [42] is employed in this section to evaluate the UGS’s
operational reliability to determine whether the UGS is capable of
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Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418
completing the required injection-production task. The uncertainties in
the gas injection/production capacity is considered in the evaluation
process. The details of the integration method are illustrated as follows,
which refer to the flowchart shown in Fig. 7.
The integration method for assessing the operational reliability of
the UGS includes three major steps. For the first step, the hydraulic
calculation of the gas injection/production process is adopted to obtain
the operating parameters of the major components in a UGS. Table 3
gives an overview of the hydraulic calculation model and the operating
parameters for the major components in this step.
Next, the reliability of the reservoir, injection/production wells, and
the equipment in the surface system, is evaluated. The failure criterion
of the components considering the structural failure or overload failure
is determined, and the corresponding limit state functions according to
the failure criterion are developed. More specifically, the structural
failure criterion is applied for the reservoir, injection/production well,
and pipeline, while the overload failure criterion is employed for the
compressor unit and treatment facilities in the surface system. The re-
liability or failure probability for each component is calculated based
on a Monte Carlo approach, and the operating parameters obtained in
the first step are used in the process. According to the above unit re-
liability calculation results and system reliability theory, the reliability
of the subsystem, such as the well system and the surface system are
then calculated. The subsystem, such as the well system and the surface
system can be regarded as a series system and a k-of-n system, re-
spectively, and the series system also can be considered as a k-out-of-n
system when k equal to n.
Finally, the operation reliability of the UGS, which reflects the ca-
pacity of performing the specified gas injection-production function, is
obtained from the following equation:
RUGS = Rreservoir ·Rwellsystem ·Rsurfacesystem (2)
where RUGS represents the operational reliability of the UGS, Rreservoir,
Rwellsystem, and Rsurfacesystem represent the reliability of the reservoir, well
system, and the surface system, respectively.
According to the evaluation results of the UGS’s operational relia-
bility, whether the specified gas injection/production task is completed
or not can be determined. Therefore, the amount of gas supplied by the
NGPS to the consumers is obtained.
2.4. Assessment of the gas supply reliability
In each Monte Carlo trial, the daily amounts of natural gas supplied
by the NGPS and required by the consumers is obtained. Employing Eq.
(1), two indicators are calculated, which are proposed to quantify the
Fig. 5. Monthly imbalanced factor of different consumer types in Beijing.
W. Yu, et al.
Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of the UGS in a depleted reservoir.
gas supply reliability from the quantity and time perspectives, respec-
tively.
The Monte Carlo simulation checks if the maximum number of trials
is reached. If not, the simulation repeats itself (next trial) by calculating
the amounts of gas supply and market demand again. Once the max-
imum number is reached, the Monte Carlo simulation stops and the
expected gas supply reliability is estimated:
N
∑ j = 1 Rsystem (j )
Rsystem =
N (3)
where Rsystem represents the expected gas supply reliability over the
Fig. 7. Flowchart for the operational reliability assessment based on the integration method.
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Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418
mission time; j is the trial step; Rsystem(j) is the gas supply reliability for
the jth trial.
The flowchart for calculating the gas supply reliability is shown in
Fig. 8. Table 4 gives the parameters and their meaning that are used in
Fig. 8.
3. Case study
3.1. Definition of the case-study NGPS
The application of the developed methodology has been performed
on a simplified NGPS. The case study NGPS is derived from a realistic
natural gas pipeline system operated by PetroChina, which is composed
of a natural gas transmission pipeline system (NGTPS) and an under-
ground gas storage (UGS). Because of the PetroChina privacy policy, the
realistic natural gas pipeline system is simplified, and some information
and data of the natural gas transmission pipeline system (NGTPS) and
underground gas storage (UGS) is assumed reasonably. The schematic
of the simplified NGPS is shown in Fig. 9. The input parameters of the
NGTPS are based on Ref. [27], including pipeline parameters, com-
pressor station parameters, and failure and repair rates of the pipeline
segment and compressor unit.
Five consumer nodes are numbered from 1 to 5 in the test NGPS.
The required volumetric flow rate, Qreq i
, i = 1, … ,5, and the minimum
i
required pressure, Pmin , i = 1, … 5, are listed in Table 5. Assumptions
about the consumer demands are listed in Table 6, and only the demand
in the fifth demand node has seasonal and daily fluctuations in the case-
study.
The UGS in the NGPS case-study is the supporting facility for the
fifth demand node. The data of the UGS, including the parameters of the
reservoir, gas injection/production well, and facilities in the surface
W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

Table 3
Overview of the hydraulic calculation and operating parameters for the major component in a UGS.
Component Hydraulic calculation model Operating parameters

Reservoir Inventory analysis of the UGS [43,44] Inventory of the UGS and reservoir pressure
Injection/production well Productivity formula of single injection/production well [45]; Bottom-hole pressure; wellhead pressure; flow rate of the single well
Calculation model of the wellhead pressure and bottom-hole pressure
Equipment in the surface Hydraulic calculation model of the surface system Shaft power of the compressor unit; operating pressure and flow rate
system of a pipeline; operating pressure of treatment facilities

Fig. 8. Flowchart for calculating the gas supply reliability.

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W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

Table 4
Parameters used in Fig. 8.
Parameters Meaning

Si The amount of gas supplied by the NGTPS on the ith day

Di The amount of gas required by consumers on the ith day
Qi The difference between the gas supply of the NGTPS and the market demand on the ith day, namely the required task for the gas production/injection
Xi The amount of gas supplied by the NGPS (including the NGTPS and the UGS) on the ith day
Rand The random variable sampled from the uniform distribution U [0, 1]
RT The repair time of the UGS
M0 The initial inventory
Mi The inventory on the ith day
RUGS(Qi,Mi) The operational reliability of the UGS performing the required gas injection/production task, Qi, under the Mi inventory

Fig. 9. The schematic of the test NGPS.

Table 5 system, is based on Ref. [42]. The UGS contains 17 injection/produc-

The information for five consumer nodes. tion wells and was converted from a depleted gas condensate field. The
Consumer node Location (km) Qreq (Nm3/h) Pmin (MPa)
initial inventory of UGS (M0) and the initial reservoir pressure are
1.5437 billion cubic meters and 25.5 MPa, respectively. The maximum
1 291.96 6164.21 4 daily gas injection and production capacity is 3.5 million cubic meters
2 403.22 38584.58 3.5 and 6 million cubic meters, respectively.
3 842.58 22362.50 3.5
Because the input parameters of the NGTPS and the UGS are in
4 905.59 25629.17 3.5
5 929.6 329166.67 3.0 accordance with those in Refs. [27] and [42], detailed descriptions of
these parameters are not repeated in this study.

Table 6
Consumer demand in the test NGPS.
Consumer node Mean Value Maximum value Minimum value COV Distribution

1 1
Qreq – – – –
2 2
Qreq – – – –
3 3
Qreq – – – –
4 4
Qreq – – – –

5 Low demand period (1 Mar.–31 May and 1 Sept.–30 Nov.)

5 5 5 0.1 Truncated Normal distribution
0.75 × Qreq 0.8 × Qreq 0.7 × Qreq
Average demand period (1 Jun.–31 Aug.)
5 5 5 0.1 Truncated Normal distribution
0.9 × Qreq 1.0 × Qreq 0.8 × Qreq
Peak demand period (1 Dec.–28 Feb. of the next year)
5 5 5 0.2 Truncated Normal distribution
1.6 × Qreq 1.8 × Qreq 1.4 × Qreq

9
W. Yu, et al.
3.2. Assumptions in this case study
(1) Except for the pipeline segments and compressor units, all other
components in the NGTPS are assumed to be functioning in their
perfect states. Moreover, the pipeline segment and compressor unit
can be in two states: 0 = As good as new; 1 = Failed.
(2) The time at which the failure occurs and the duration of the cor-
rective maintenance are assumed to be exponentially distributed.
(3) As Ref. [27] shows, the probability of joint failure is comparatively
rare. Therefore, the case study restricts the analysis to a single
component failure.
(4) On the basis of operator requirements of a natural gas pipeline
company, the repair time (RT) of a UGS failure is assumed to be
3 days.
Fig. 10. The amount of gas supplied by the NGTPS and required by five consumer nodes for a Monte Carlo trial.
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Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418
(5) The truncated normal distribution is assumed to be the suitable
distribution to describe the load duration curve.
(6) The operating parameters and material parameters of the compo-
nents in the UGS during the mission time are assumed as random
variables of normal distribution.
3.3. Gas supply reliability assessment for the case-study NGPS
In this case-study, 10,000 of the Monte Carlo trials are applied to
calculate the expected gas supply reliability over the mission time
(T = 365 days). The time taken for the Monte Carlo simulation (based
on these 10,000 trials) is approximately 10 h (Simulation machine
specifications: 4.0 GHz, 32 GB RAM). In each Monte Carlo trial, the
amount of gas supplied by the NGTPS and required by the consumer
W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

gas supplied by the NGPS to consumers is obtained and the gas supply
reliability for every consumer node is estimated using Eq. (1). The re-
sults of gas supply reliability for both the single and 10,000 Monte
Carlo trials are presented in Tables 7 and 8, respectively.
From Tables 7 and 8, the following conclusions can be drawn:

(1) The gas supply reliability of the NGPS can be assessed from the
quantity and time perspectives using the proposed methodology.
(2) Consumer node 4 and 5 are identified as the weakest consumer
nodes in the NGPS case-study.
(3) The indicator from the perspective of quantity can ascertain the
ability of the system that covers the amount of gas required by
consumers. Using the indicator for the perspective of time, the
duration that the system meets the required demand is obtained.
(4) For each consumer node, the indicator from the perspective of
Fig. 11. The results of the operational reliability for the UGS. quantity is always no lower than the indicator from the perspective
of time, because the flow rate which is lower than the demand is
considered in the indicator from the perspective of quantity.
Table 7
The results of gas supply reliability assessment for a Monte Carlo trial.
3.4. Comparisons with existing approaches
Consumer node From the perspective of From the perspective of time
quantity
In order to study the effectiveness of this thesis’s methodology, the
1 1 1 existing approaches reported in the literature [21,22] are compared,
2 1 1 and the results are illustrated in Table 9 and Fig. 12. In Ref. [21], the
3 9.953E−01 9.918E−01 gas supply reliability was assessed without considering the system’s
4 9.920E−01 9.863E−01
5 9.906E−01 9.726E−01
dynamic behavior and the existence of the UGS. In Ref. [22], the effect
of the system’s dynamic behavior and the uncertainties, both in the
market demand and the UGS’s injection/production capacity, were all
Table 8 overlooked.
The gas supply reliability assessment for the case-study NGPS. It should be noted that only demand at the fifth demand node has
seasonal and daily fluctuations, and the UGS is the supporting facility
Consumer node From the perspective of From the perspective of time
quantity for the fifth demand node. Moreover, when the uncertainty of the
market demand at the fifth node is ignored, its demand is equal to the
1 9.997E−01 9.996E−01 required volumetric flow rate Qreq 5
.
2 9.993E−01 9.990E−01 According to Fig. 12, the following conclusions can be drawn:
3 9.971E−01 9.944E−01
4 9.947E−01 9.879E−01
5 9.912E−01 9.757E−01 1. Market demand uncertainty, the system’s dynamic behavior, and the
existence of the UGS all have significant impacts on the gas supply
reliability of a NGPS.
Table 9 2. The gas supply reliability is underestimated if the existence of the
The assessment results of the gas supply reliability for different approaches. UGS or the system’s dynamic behavior is ignored, because ignorance
Node Our methodology Ref. [21] Ref. [22] of these items will result in the underestimation of the gas supply
capacity of the NGPS.
From the perspective of the quantity
1 9.997E−01 9.996E−01 9.996E−01
3.5. Sensitivity analysis
2 9.993E−01 9.991E−01 9.991E−01
3 9.971E−01 9.937E−01 9.937E−01
4 9.947E−01 9.883E−01 9.883E−01 Six scenarios, summarized in Table 10, are adopted to investigate
5 9.912E−01 9.056E−01 9.992E−01 the impact of uncertainties both in the gas supply and the market de-
From the perspective of the time mand, on the gas supply reliability. Because the existence of the UGS
1 9.996E−01 9.995E−01 9.995E−01 will greatly mitigate the impact of market demand uncertainty on the
2 9.990E−01 9.986E−01 9.986E−01 gas supply reliability; therefore, when we analyze the impact of the
3 9.944E−01 9.873E−01 9.873E−01
market demand uncertainty, the UGS is removed from the test NGPS, as
4 9.879E−01 9.763E−01 9.763E−01
5 9.757E−01 7.494E−01 9.977E−01 shown in Case 4 and Case 6.
Fig. 13 shows the assessment results of the gas supply reliability for
all scenarios. By comparing the results of Case 1, Case 2, Case 3 and
nodes are calculated, and the calculation results in a Monte Carlo trial Case 4, one can find that ignorance of the system’s dynamic behavior
are shown in Fig. 10. Except for the fifth demand node, all other de- and the existence of the UGS both have an adverse effect on the gas
mand nodes don’t have the UGS. Therefore, the difference between the supply reliability. Ignoring the effect of the system’s dynamic behavior
gas supplied by the NGTPS and required by the fifth demand node is results in a relatively wide-scale consequence with low severity, while
calculated. The UGS is employed to regulate the supply/demand im- removing the UGS, results in a local (only the fifth consumer node), but
balance by performing its gas injection/production function. The op- more severe consequence. Besides, ignoring the uncertainty in the
erational reliability of the UGS is then assessed to determine whether UGS’s gas injection/production capacity, leads to overestimation of the
the UGS is able to complete the specified gas injection/production task. gas supply reliability according to the results of Case 1 and Case 5. The
The result of the operational reliability assessment of the UGS for a reason is that, ignoring this uncertainty means that the UGS is always
Monte Carlo trial is shown in Fig. 11. Thereafter, the daily amount of functioning in the perfect state, which is inconsistent with the actual
situation. The impact of market demand uncertainty on the gas supply

11
W. Yu, et al. Applied Energy 252 (2019) 113418

Fig. 12. Comparisons with the previous approaches.

Table 10
Description for all scenarios.
Scenario Description

Case 1: Reference scenario Effect of the dynamic behavior and the uncertainties both in market demand and UGS’s gas injection/production capacity,
are all considered
Case 2: No line pack scenario Only the system’s dynamic behavior is ignored
Case 3: No line pack and UGS scenario System’s dynamic behavior is ignored and the UGS is removed from the NGPS
Case 4: No UGS scenario The UGS is removed from the NGPS
Case 5: Ignoring the uncertainty in UGS’s capacity Only the uncertainty in UGS’s gas injection/production capacity is ignored
Case 6: No UGS and demand uncertainty scenario The market demand uncertainty is ignored and the UGS is removed from the NGPS

Fig. 13. The assessment results of the gas supply reliability (all scenarios).

reliability is analyzed by comparing the results of Case 4 and Case 6.
The case study shows that ignorance of the uncertainty in market de-
mand will lead to the overestimation of the gas supply reliability.
4. Conclusions and future work
An integrated methodology to assess the gas supply reliability of the
natural gas pipeline system is developed in this study. Considering the
uncertainty and complexity in the natural gas pipeline system, the
calculation of the system’s gas supply and the prediction of market
demand, are integrated into a single Monte Carlo simulation. Based on
the supply strategy of the natural gas pipeline system, the gas supply is
composed of the gas supplied by the natural gas transmission pipeline
system and supplemented by the underground gas storage. Therefore,
the amount of gas supplied by the natural gas transmission pipeline
system is calculated firstly, by combining the transient hydraulic
analysis with the state transition process simulation. Considering
market demand uncertainty, the law of seasonal and daily fluctuations
of the targeted market, is analyzed and the amount of gas required by
the consumers is predicted using the load duration curve technology.
The supply-demand imbalance between the natural gas transmission
pipeline system and the consumers is then computed. The underground
gas storage is employed to regulate the imbalance by performing its gas
injection/production function. Moreover, the operational reliability of
the underground gas storage is evaluated to determine whether it is
able to complete the specified task. Thereafter, the amount of gas
supplied by the natural gas pipeline system to consumers, is obtained
on each trial, and the gas supply reliability is estimated from the
quantity and time perspectives. Finally, the expected gas supply relia-
bility over the mission time, is assessed based on N Monte Carlo trials.
In order to confirm the feasibility of this thesis’s methodology, a
simplified natural gas pipeline system is applied to assess the gas supply

12
W. Yu, et al.
reliability. A comparison with the previous approaches and a discussion
about the differences are presented. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis
is employed to investigate the impact of uncertainties both in the gas
supply and market demand on the gas supply reliability. According to
the assessment results, the system’s ability to satisfy the consumers
demand, is evaluated and the weakest consumer node is identified.
Comparison results show that market demand uncertainty, the system’s
dynamic behavior (the effect of line pack), and the existence of the
underground gas storage, all have significant impacts on the gas supply
reliability. Moreover, the results of the sensitivity analysis reveal that
the system’s dynamic behavior and the existence of the underground
gas storage have a global and local effect on the gas supply reliability,
respectively. Furthermore, the gas supply reliability is overestimated
without considering the uncertainties in the underground gas storage’s
gas injection/production capacity.
The developed methodology still suffers from several limitations,
like all methods, and consists of partial representation of the reality of
such a complex system. Actually, the research object of the gas supply
reliability is a natural gas supply system consisting of an upstream gas
source and a midstream natural gas pipeline system. The assessment of
the gas supply reliability also needs to consider the impact of market
demand. However, in the current research on gas supply reliability, it is
difficult to consider the impact of the upstream gas source on the gas
supply reliability. Because it is related to geopolitical risk, economic
and social factors, rather than a simple technical problem. Therefore, in
this study, the impact of the uncertainty in the upstream gas source on
the gas supply reliability has been ignored, and it is assumed that it can
maintain stable gas supply.
In the future, this methodology will be supplemented and improved,
especially with respect to considering the factors related to gas source
uncertainly, describing the natural gas pipeline system in a more and
more realistic way, and shortening the Monte Carlo simulation time.
Nevertheless, our methodology has made great progress compared to
previous methodologies and can be used as an effective tool in the gas
supply reliability assessment.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the support from National Natural Science
Foundation of China (No. 51874323), National Major Science and
Technology Project of China (No. 2016ZX05066-005-001), and
National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51504271).
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