Assessing the Impact of Investments in Cross-Border Pipelines on the Security of Gas Supply in the EU

Abstract

The European Union (EU) is highly dependent on external natural gas supplies and has experienced severe gas cuts in the past, mainly driven by the technical complexity of the high-pressure natural gas system and political instability in some of the supplier countries. Declining indigenous natural gas production and growing demand for gas in the EU has encouraged investments in cross-border transmission capacity to increase the sharing of resources between the member states, particularly in the aftermath of the Russia–Ukraine gas crisis in January 2009. This article models the EU interconnected natural gas system to assess the impact of investments in the gas transmission network by comparing the performance of the system for scenarios of 2009 and 2017, using a mathematical optimization approach. The model uses the technical data of the infrastructures, such as production, storage, regasification, and exchange capacity through cross-border pipelines, and proposes an optimal collaborative strategy which ensures the best possible coverage of overall demand. The actual peak demand situations of the extreme cases of 2009 and 2017 are analyzed under hypothetical supply crises caused by geopolitical or commercial disputes. The application of the proposed methodology leads to results which show that the investments made in this system do not decongest the cross-border pipeline network but improve the demand coverage. Countries such as Spain and Italy experience a lower impact on gas supply due to the variety of mechanisms available to cover their demand. Furthermore, the findings prove that cooperation facilitates the supply of demand in crisis situations.

Assessment of the Robustness of the European Gas System to Massive Gas Outages and Evaluation of the Effect of Increased Energy Efficiency on the Security of Gas Coverage in Different Countries

“…This section describes the simulation model selected to solve the gas demand issue in different proposed scenarios. The countries have been analyzed with the methodology described in the paper "Assessing the Impact of Investments in Cross-Border Pipelines on the Security of Gas Supply in the EU" [21]. To summarize, the countries within the European natural gas system are considered as nodes with technical and capacity information on the country itself.…”

Gas from the South, Not from Russia: The Possibility of Distributing Natural Gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Poland and Central Europe

“…In this way, the main task of the NSGC will be to make CEEs independent of Russian supplies. It should be borne in mind that this European region is still significantly dependent on the Russian supplier [10]. It is also not without significance that the NSGC is an essential element in the European Union's endeavours towards energy neutrality from a two-decade perspective.…”

“…Without a doubt, the topic of natural gas transmission systems in Europe is a significant one in the discourse on science and research. The development of gas infrastructure in light of challenges to its distribution is a special area of attention [9,10]. However, the expansion of natural gas transmission capacity in CEEs and in Eastern Mediterranean countries is usually perceived from the perspective of the interests of a specific country [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

The North-South Gas Corridor in the Context of Poland’s Gas Transmission System—A Perfect Opportunity to Diversify Gas Resources

“…The security will be provided by diversification of gas resources and supply directions, regional gas market integration, and greater cooperation in terms of energy. The North-South gas pipeline will guarantee gas supply autonomy for Central European countries as this region still very much depends on Russian supplies [50] (p. 3). Additionally, the corridor plays a vital role in EU strategy, according to which member states should reach climate neutrality within the next three decades.…”