WEGA and MInGa – Considering regional transmission capacities for global gas market models

Natural gas plays an important role in the European energy mix. Its fields of application are diverse. In the future, significant changes in European gas flows will occur such as less indigenous production and more imports of LNG. It is also possible that green or blue hydrogen will be mixed into the gas flows in the future. The effects of these changes on gas prices and gas flows can be calculated with the global gas market model WEGA. However, analyses to discover regional bottlenecks are not possible. Thus, in this paper, a model coupling between WEGA and the regional gas market model MInGa is performed. It is demonstrated that the model coupling is viable and that it provides the opportunity to discover regional bottlenecks in scenarios with disruptions, a cold spell or hydrogen injection of power-to-gas plants.