Robustness of Trans-European Gas Networks: The Hot Backbone

Here we uncover the load and vulnerability backbones of the Trans-European gas pipeline network. Combining topological data with information on inter-country flows, we estimate the global load of the network and its vulnerability to failures. To do this, we apply two complementary methods generalized from the betweenness centrality and the maximum flow. We find that the gas pipeline network has grown to satisfy a dual-purpose: on one hand, the major pipelines are crossed by a large number of shortest paths thereby increasing the efficiency of the network; on the other hand, a non-operational pipeline causes only a minimal impact on network capacity, implying that the network is error-tolerant. These findings suggest that the Trans-European gas pipeline network is robust, i.e. error-tolerant to failures of high load links.

CARVALHO Rui;  BUZNA Lubos;  BONO Flavio;  GUTIERREZ TENREIRO Eugenio;  JUST Wolfram;  ARROWSMITH David; 

2009-09-23

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

JRC50948

1539-3755,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC50948,   

10.1103/PhysRevE.80.016106,