DNV GL partners with SGN to demonstrate gas network viability

Following a successful Network Innovation Competition bid in 2015, DNV GL has secured innovation funding from SGN to partner in a project to demonstrate the viability and practical reality of a mixed-source, energy-centric gas network for the future. The project was developed, and will be delivered, in partnership with SGN, one of the UK's key gas distribution operators.

The integrated energy network of the future must be flexible, secure, cost effective and, above all, safe. The changing gas industry, driven by a reduced North Sea supply, is increasingly required to accommodate gas from more diverse sources, such as biomethane and shale gas. Each source has a range of different gas compositions, physical properties and energy content that must be accounted for within the network.

Gus McIntosh, Innovation & New Technology manager and project director for SGN, said, “We are excited by this partnership with DNV GL and the opportunity it affords to radically change how we manage and design our networks, while removing barriers for new sources of gas and stimulating downstream gas renewables. A key challenge is to not only manage the volume and flow in our network, but to manage and model the energy content. Once again, we are showing the energy market that gas has a significant role to play in the future energy mix.”

A crucial part of the endeavor will be a field trial to understand the energy flows within a low-pressure gas distribution network. Lower cost gas quality and flow devices will be verified for use downstream of more accurate traditional high-pressure network measurements. Network and consumer meter data will be collated on DNV GL’s cloud server and used to model energy flow through the gas network in real time.

“This is an exciting opportunity to transfer and update some of the technologies and methods used in the high-pressure transmission system to complex low-pressure gas distribution networks. The project is timely as it combines innovative applications of data cloud technology, big data and real-time network modelling to facilitate the challenge of distributing a wide range of different gas qualities. It could potentially redefine business as usual for the gas networks of the future,” says DNV GL principal specialist, Sarah Kimpton.

Over the course of the three-year project, DNV GL will fulfil all aspects of the project, from selection and procurement of leading-edge equipment to real-time data collection and development of a prototype real-time network model updated regularly from the data cloud.

The project will provide a turn-key solution for SGN that will ensure the UK gas industry will understand and meet future energy challenges.

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