Modeling Electric Power and Natural Gas Systems Interdependencies: Application to Natural Hazards
To assist the evaluation of infrastructure assets from an all-hazards perspective, this paper describes the 16 progress of continuing infrastructure modeling and integration efforts underway by researchers at 17 Argonne National Laboratory under its Resilient Infrastructure Initiative. A unique approach is adopted 18 that integrates existing and proven electric power and natural gas infrastructure models used for impact 19 assessment analyses to aid and enhance the design of resilient energy systems. Significant benefits of the 20 combined electric power-natural gas model (EP-NG Model) are that the generalized framework permits 21 the integration and automation of the entire process, including threat and hazard identification and data 22 acquisition, impact zone estimation and projection, simulation of the initial effects on the initiating 23 infrastructure, evaluation of propagating effects within each infrastructure, and simulation of the influence 24 of cascading effects of the disruption on interdependent infrastructure. Two state-level case studies 25 demonstrate the approach’s effectiveness in simulating the propagation of disruptions between the natural gas and electric power systems, and the usefulness for designing resilient energy systems considering 27 hazards related to climate change and other natural hazards.