Energy Transition vs Gas Distributors: a make-or-break challenge

Gas Distributors are called to fetch the greatest opportunity of this century, where transformation through digitalization becomes a must.

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A great opportunity or a deadly nightmare. I believe that gas distributors today are called to fetch a great opportunity, which in fact may be the greatest one in this century: becoming a major player in the transition towards a low carbon economy and doing so by making available the existing gas infrastructure which, with an overall extension in Europe exceeding 2,000,000 km, is a strategic asset and an energy backbone in most European countries. 

But on the other hand, this opportunity, if not properly addressed by the gas DSOs, can become a real nightmare, where most of the traditional, old style and conservative players will be inevitably swept away.

To win this make-or-break challenge, gas DSOs must face a profound transformation, by switching from a well established, old fashioned linear business, where networks are used for receiving and distributing only one type of well-known gas (natural gas) delivered by a single counterpart (the national TSO), to an innovative, unexperimented circular business, where the same networks must be adequate to receive, blend and dispatch various types of different zero-carbon gases (such as biomethane, hydrogen, syngas), combined altogether with natural gas and injected all along the piping by numerous counterparts.  

And through reverse flow technology, that will shortly become of common use in order to accommodate the injection of new gases even in minor portions of the grids, DSOs shall be ready to exchange their roles with TSOs by supplying gas following the opposite direction in respect with the traditional networks, that is from the distribution grid to the main transportation network. 

Digitalization of gas distribution networks: a key enabler for the energy transition. To accomplish all this, the key word is digitalization. Heavy investments in the digitalization of the gas infrastructure are today an absolute ‘must’ for gas distributors, since only a fully digitized network can enable a remote control of pipes and equipment, a 24/7 real time monitoring of the despatched gas and remote commands to change the grid configuration in order to better meet a changing demand.

A full digitalization include the installation of new digitized pieces of equipment all along the distribution path, starting from gas pressure reducing and metering stations down to smart meters, including gas chromatographs, pressure sensors, gas preheating stations, odorizing equipment, etc. in-between. And, on top of that, setting up a central Control Room, operational on 24/7 basis, capable of continuously monitoring and remote commanding all the major items of the infrastructure.

This is something that, as of today, no gas DSOs in the world has yet achieved.  

Exploiting big data for smart maintenance and fugitive emissions. What’s more, gas distributors will have to move from a traditional, ordinary maintenance to a modern, predictive maintenance, enabled by the collection of unprecedented big data from field generated by a fully digitized network, and perform advanced analytics on such data in order to develop innovative algorithms to improve operational efficiency. 

Last but not least, gas distributors must prove the world to be virtuous by seriously addressing the historical issue of fugitive emissions. This challenging goal can be achieved only by abandoning the traditional gas leak detection technologies and adopting new cutting-edge technologies capable of performing superior detection, again based on the combined use of field data and appropriate algorithms, thus increasing drastically the modest current leak detection capabilities.

The current gas crisis: what initiatives can DSOs undertake to give their positive contribution? I believe that DSOs can (and must) actively contribute to the mitigation of the gas supply crisis by working on at least 3 different items.

Firstly, DSOs should become capable of monitoring and controlling their gas networks on a 24/7 basis in order to be able to adjust in real time the grid configuration to the actual volume of gas made available by the TSOs, so that to assure that the proper quantity of gas is constantly delivered to the right areas or to the selected end users (in case of a dramatic shortage). This capability calls again for the urgent need of a full digitalization of the whole operated network. 

Secondly, DSOs should actively promote the development of biomethane, which is a readily available option for natural gas replacement, by creating the positive conditions to facilitate the connection of new plants to the distribution grid. For instance, the introduction of the reverse flow application on a commercial scale represents a valuable initiative in the hands of DSOs and TSOs to support the diffusion of biomethane by de-bottlenecking the congestioned portions of grid close to the injection points.

Last but not least, DSOs should work concretely for the retrofitting of the existing natural gas assets in order to make them suitable to dispatch hydrogen and syngas, which may replace a massive quantity of natural gas today imported from unstable areas of the world.

All in all, gas DSOs can play a really strategic role to mitigate gas now, and to promote a just energy transition in near future, by valorizing their assets to foster green gases. But they need to transform themselves through innovation and digitalization, and they must do it right now.