MPNG: A MATPOWER-Based Tool for Optimal Power and Natural Gas Flow Analyses

MPNG
is an open-source simulation package for solving Optimal Power and Natural Gas Flow (OPNGF) problems. It is coded in
Matlab
and developed using the widely-used tool for power systems research and education,
Matpower
.
MPNG
assembles a nonlinear steady state OPNGF formulation for analyzing the integration of electricity and natural gas networks with order-of-priority classes of consumers and gas nodal price-controlled storage facilities. This paper presents the details of the nonlinear optimization model behind
MPNG
, as well as several features that were designed into it for the purpose of achieving robustness. These include an approximation of the Weymouth equation for handling bi-directional gas flows in pipelines, a per-unit representation for the natural gas network, and penalized slack variables for power and gas balances. Simulation results using a test case and the Colombian power and natural gas networks are presented to highlight
MPNG
’s capabilities to solve OPNGF problems.