Criticality assessment of regulating and metering stations in a natural gas distribution network in <scp>Türkiye</scp>

Abstract The importance of energy needs, resource adequacy and supply sustainability issues increases day by day with technological developments. In this context, natural gas emerges as a source that is both environmentally friendly and has new resource discoveries. The criticality status of the natural gas distribution network elements is important for the efficiency of operational activities. In this study, the failure mode effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) method is applied for 295 regulating and metering stations' system‐level functional failures located in the distribution network of a natural gas distribution company in Türkiye . The risk level is determined for each functional failure with “human safety”, “operation”, “environment” and “finance” criteria by calculating the “Risk Priority Number” (RPN). The summation of the RPN values of the functional failures at the relevant station represents the risk load of the station that is called “station criticality value”. Contrary to expectations as a result of the criticality ranking of the stations, it was determined that the customer stations have higher criticality values than the Type A regulating and metering stations.