Gas Pool Balancing via Network Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current gas pipeline systems face challenges in accurately and efficiently balancing inputs and outputs across a network of interconnected pools, often requiring numerous passes to achieve balance, leading to excessive cuts in gas volumes and computational inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A method that identifies independent groups of pools, calculates effective ranks for nominations, reverses flow directions as needed, and distributes gas to balance pools while minimizing rounding errors, allowing for simultaneous balancing of the entire network with fewer passes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional sequential pool balancing is used, then pool balance is achieved, but excessive passes are required leading to computational inefficiency and excessive gas cuts
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the interconnected pool system into independent groups of pools based on nomination patterns and pool connections. By identifying and processing independent groups separately, the system reduces the number of passes needed through the entire network while maintaining balance accuracy. This segmentation allows parallel processing of independent groups, significantly improving computational efficiency.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary identification of independent pool groups and calculates effective ranks for all nominations before the actual balancing process. This preliminary organization of data and identification of processing groups allows the system to minimize the number of passes required during the balancing execution, reducing both computational time and gas cuts.
2Measurement precision
If multiple passes are performed to balance all pools, then balance accuracy is improved, but computational resources and time are excessively consumed
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing the pool network into independent groups that can be processed separately, the system achieves accurate balancing within each group in fewer passes. The segmentation prevents unnecessary re-processing of pools that are not interconnected, significantly reducing total computational time while maintaining the required balancing precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies partial action by focusing computational efforts only on the specific independent groups that require balancing, rather than performing excessive passes through the entire pool network. This targeted approach maintains accuracy where needed while avoiding wasteful computation in already-balanced or independent sections.
3Reliability
If gas cuts are made to balance pools, then pool balance is achieved, but customer gas delivery is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
By segmenting the pool system into independent groups, the patent enables more precise control of gas flows within each group. This allows for minimized gas cuts by identifying the specific pools and nominations that require adjustment, rather than applying blanket cuts across the entire network. The segmentation preserves gas delivery volumes by confining balance adjustments to only the necessary local areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies local quality by implementing balance adjustments specifically targeted at the pools and nominations within independent groups that actually require balancing. This localized approach ensures that gas cuts are made only where necessary to achieve balance, preserving maximum gas delivery volumes to customers in unaffected areas of the network.
4Productivity
If the entire pool network is processed simultaneously, then computational efficiency is improved, but complexity of managing interconnected pools increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent resolves the complexity issue by segmenting the interconnected pool network into independent groups that can be processed simultaneously. This segmentation simplifies the management of simultaneous processing by creating distinct, non-interacting processing units, each of which can be handled independently while contributing to the overall network balance. The approach maintains computational efficiency through parallel processing while reducing management complexity through clear group boundaries.
Data Source
AI summary
In accordance with a first aspect of the instant invention, there is provided a method of gas pool balancing which provides a method of simultaneously and systematically balancing an entire gas transmission network. In a first embodiment, the instant method operates by identifying pools with input amounts of gas available, numerically distributing that gas throughout a representation of the gas network, and, thereafter, physically distributing gas in that network according to the solution obtained. In another embodiment, the instant method operates by forming a system of equations that define the topology of the gas transmission network. Solution of the resulting system of equations yields a rapid and accurate system-wide solution to the gas balancing problem which heretofore was solved by repeated iterations of an algorithm which balanced one pool at a time.