Optimising the renewal of natural gas reticulation pipes using GIS

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:A major concern for Energex, Australia's largest energy utility in South East Queensland, is theescape of natural gas out of their reticulation systems. Within many of the older areas in Brisbane,these networks operate primarily at low and medium pressure with a significant percentage of mainsbeing cast iron or steel. Over many years pipes in these networks have been replaced, yet reportsshow that unaccounted for gas from the same networks remain high. Furthermore, operation andmaintenance budgets for these networks are high with many of these pipes close to the end of theireconomic life.When operation and maintenance costs exceed the costs of replacement, the Energex gas utilityinitiates projects to renew reticulation networks with polyethylene pipes. Making decisions aboutpipe renewal requires an evaluation of historical records from a number of sources, namely:• gas consumption figures,• history of leaks,• maintenance and other related cost, and• the loss of revenue contributed by unaccounted for gas.Financial justification of capital expenditure has always been a requirement for renewal projects atthe Energex gas utility, however the impact of a deregulation in the energy utility market hasnecessitated a review of their financial assessment for capital projects. The Energex gas utility hasdeveloped an application that evaluates the financial viability of renewal projects. This researchwill demonstrate the role of GIS integration with the Energex financial application.The results of this study showed that a GIS integrated renewal planning approach incorporatessignificant benefits including:• Efficient selection of a sub-network based on pipe connectivity,• Discovery of hidden relationships between spatially enabled alphanumeric data andenvironmental information that improves decision making, and• Enhanced testing of proposed renewal design options by scrutinizing the attributes of spatialdata.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University