A new Dutch/German consortium ‘Energy Network Optimisation in Europe’ is working on mathematical modeling of Europe’s ‘increasingly complex’ gas networks. According to the proposers, ‘liberalization of the gas network is a complicating factor which can potentially lead to the emergence of inconsistencies.’ These, it appears, can be ‘resolved’ through ‘mathematical insights.’ Traditional paths from producer to consumer are evolving into a gas ‘superhighway’ with a multiplicity of branches. Manager of the €12 million project, TU-Delft’s Kees Vuik said, ‘The mathematical models that we are developing can be used by gas suppliers to tune their gas lines much more precisely in terms of the amount and value of the gas flowing through them’. The research sets out to align the delivery of different types of gas with varying calorific values with the ‘dynamic gas market that has emerged since liberalization.’ Tuning is achieved by opening and closing valves and by switching compressors on and off. Consortium partners include 3TU Delft/AMI and Matheon—www.oilit.com/links/1110_19.
EU researchers are working to develop ‘reconfigurable chips’ for real-world applications. The ‘facilitating analysis and synthesis technologies for effective reconfiguration’ (Faster) is a €2.8 million, 3 year program targeting applications in computational earth science, 3D rendering and image processing and network intrusion. Olivier Pell of project member Maxeler Systems expects that the project will lead to a ‘20% productivity improvement and a 50% total ownership cost reduction for applications such as reverse time migration’—www.oilit.com/links/1110_20.
This article originally appeared in Oil IT Journal 2011 Issue # 10.
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