European gas grid through the eye of the TiGER

Investigating bottlenecks in pipeline flows by modelling history. This paper brings together findings from previous OIES research on European gas hub price correlation by Beatrice Petrovich  with demonstrated capability in European gas transmission system modelling by Harald Heckling and Florian Weiser at EWI Energy Research and Scenarios at the EWI Institute in Cologne. The paper compares the evidence for periodic bottlenecks in Europe’s gas transmission systems, indicated by price correlation de-linkage – and supporting  evidence of apparent physical or contractual flow constraints – with the results obtained by ‘re-running history’ using the EWI TIGER model.  The modelled view of history presumes ‘perfect market’ behaviour in respect of agents making the best use of infrastructure (‘lowest cost’ objective function) to move gas from A to B given data on tariff costs. ….