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Modified brownfield of the Austrian gas grid

PyPSA-Eur default

The default dataset used in PyPSA-Eur is the SciGRID_gas dataset. While this is a reasonably accurate dataset for the low spatial resolution of PyPSA-Eur, a more refined resolution on a sub-national level is not given. The values for capacities given for transport corridors between Austrian regions when using a NUTS3 clustering especially are not realistic and need to be improved for a truly sector-coupled consideration of the Austrian energy system.

Map of PyPSA-Eur default gas pipelines in Austria in 2025 with NUTS3 clustering Map of PyPSA-AT gas pipelines in Austria in 2025 with NUTS3 clustering after all proposed changes were applied

In PyPSA-AT

PyPSA-AT is hosted and maintained by the Austrian Gas Grid Management GmbH. This means that PyPSA-AT can be supplied directly with expert knowledge of the complete Austrian brownfield gas grid. In collaboration with those experts, two datasets for Austria were generated and added to PyPSA-AT in the /data/pypsa-at/ folder.

The two datasets represent NUTS2 (ten Austrian regions, file AGGM_gas_network_base_AT10.csv) and NUTS3 (35 Austrian regions, file AGGM_gas_network_base_AT35.csv) clustering. They contain especially data on the link capacities between regions ("transport corridors") and their respective lengths. Data on pipeline diameter is not added and will not be added due to reasons of confidentiality.

Only those two AT clusterings are supported.

Rule modify_brownfield_gas_network_AT

To overwrite the original dataset for Austrian regions, a new rule was introduced. It is built between the existing rules cluster_gas_network and prepare_sector_network. The new rule takes the output of the clustering rule, modifies it, and returns its output to prepare_sector_network. If the config setting for modification of the Austrian brownfield is disabled, the rule is still called, but only passes the input through, preserving the original workflow.

In config.at.yaml

The changes added by this improved dataset can be turned on via the config setting modify_brownfield_gas_network_AT:

mods: 
    modify_brownfield_gas_network_AT: true

Extendable pipeline capacity and new pipelines

In addition to the data update, two more tightly linked changes to the gas network were added.

Non-extendable pipeline capacities before a threshold year

In modify_prenetwork, gas pipeline objects are set to be non-extendable until a given threshold year. This threshold year can be set with the config setting threshold_year_for_gas_grid_expansion. If no threshold year is given, the default year set is 2040. In config.at.yaml: 

mods: 
  threshold_year_for_gas_grid_expansion: 2035

No new methane pipelines

To conform with reality, where no large scale expansion of the methane grid is planned, all newly built gas pipelines with carrier type gas pipeline new are set to be non-extendable.