Impact of power-to-gas on cascading failures in interdependent electric and gas networks

Abstract

The need for an efficient and safe penetration of renewable energy resources in power systems has led to the study of unconventional storage technologies, such as Power-to-Gas (PtG). In this paper, the effects of PtG are analyzed under an operational risk perspective in the contest of interdependent gas and electrical networks. Component failures or stressful operations of one of these networks, e.g. a sudden power generation drop, can induce operational constraint violations, e.g. pressure violations, in the coupled network and lead to instability. The results show that PtG provides a beneficial impact on the pressure levels of the gas system, and entails a reduction of the consequences of a failure cascade. The beneficial effects are assessed for several configurations of PtG facilities in the gas network. Minimum safe PtG injections, which prevent pressure violations and failure cascades, are quantified.