A Tight Convex Relaxation for the Natural Gas Operation Problem

With the increase in the investment in the gas-fired electricity generation technology, capturing the operation constraints of the natural gas network in the electricity and natural gas operation problems becomes more crucial. The non-convexity in the feasibility region formed by natural gas network constraints will impede achieving the global solution for these problems. This letter proposed an algorithm to procure a tight and tractable convex relaxation for the natural gas network constraints that can be leveraged in the electricity and/or natural gas network operation problems. The merit of the proposed algorithm is illustrated using a case study and the efficiency of the proposed formulation is compared with mixed integer linear and semidefinite programming formulations.