Getting gas to the right place at the right time, how does it work?

With hundreds of installations and fifteen thousand kilometres of pipelines, Gasunie transports nearly a quarter of all natural gas used in the European Union. The Dutch and German gas grids are among the world’s most modern and most reliable. Gas outages are an extremely rare occurrence. That’s the ‘road network’, but who manages the traffic? We asked one of our ‘traffic managers’, i.e. gas dispatchers, at Gasunie’s Central Command Post (CCP).

How does natural gas makes its way to consumers, including industry, regional distribution network operators, and consumers outside the Netherlands. 'We are dealing with gas from Dutch gas fields and foreign gas that has to be made suitable for our gas appliances at Dutch households and companies. You can't just use gas from other sources in that. And so, we first mix part of the foreign gas to get the composition just right. On top of that, there is also the fact that different end users purchase different quality gas. To make sure we can meet all these different requirements, we monitor gas transmission 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That monitoring and adjustment is done in the CCP.'

At the CCP, there are four different gas dispatchers working at any one time, each of whom has a specific role. Alarm dispatcher assess reports coming in on the computer system and called in by workers out in the field. Whenever maintenance is performed that may affect gas transmission, job dispatchers take care of monitoring it. Contract dispatchers check the administrative groundwork ahead of gas transmission. And finally, the transmission dispatchers monitor the actual gas transmission. Needless to say, these dispatchers work in close collaboration. ‘This is not something you can do on your own, you must do it together as a team. Every working day, a dispatcher fulfils one of these four roles for the entire day. This keeps the work varied, while still allowing you to really focus on one role for a whole day. There is always a senior or first dispatcher on hand, who will take charge as and when necessary.’

‘Although things can get hectic, we never go into a panic. We approach everything with a calm and considered mindset. Sure, you have to put your foot down sometimes, which is why it is good that one of us is ultimately in charge. How often we have to intervene? That differs greatly. When a lot of work is being performed on the grid, transmission is also affected. That’s often when you have to intervene. During the night shift, interventions are less likely to be needed. As long as everything is balanced, the work mainly involves monitoring the system. But don’t get me wrong, the computer system doesn’t automatically increase the pressure somewhere as and when needed. This is always a human decision and done manually. No day is ever the same.’