Optimal Gas Flow Algorithm for Natural Gas Distribution Systems in Urban Environment

This chapter deals with crucial issues on the evolution of natural gas distribution grids, starting from research and field tests activities conducted as part of a research project named "Smart Grid Project". One of the goals of the Smart Grid Project was the design, set up and installation of a prototype of a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system equipped with the remote control of three of the 180 Final Reduction Units (FRUs) that supply the urban gas distribution grid of the Bari municipality, a medium-sized town in Italy. Modern natural gas distributions networks should be operated under real-time monitoring and control with an aim of achieving the optimization of various parameters. The general Optimal Gas Flow (OGF) problem can be formulated as a general nonlinear optimization problem, where inequality constraints are treated with penalty functions since the inequality limits in the current problem can be considered as soft constraints.