Power-to-gas technology has been proposed as one component for future energy systems facing decarbonization targets. This paper presents a power-to-gas focused open optimization model for studying cost efficient design and operation of future urban energy system. The model is able to distinguish the benefits of different configurations of power-to-gas by modelling several energy vectors, including electricity, heating, and cooling alongside with different plant components. The usefulness of the built multi-vector model is illustrated by a case study where the benefits of power-to-gas are studied in the context of a medium-sized Nordic city. The results show that the city is able to reach carbon neutrality with the help of power-to-gas. Power-to-gas provides cost savings by reducing the need of heat storages and transmission capacity. The savings are greatest when the emission reduction goal is high and transmission capacity expansion is expensive. Direct air capture appears as the superior carbon dioxide source when compared to post combustion capture from flue gases due to costs and annual availability. The case study shows no economic benefit for distributed power-to-gas.

电转气技术已被提议作为未来能源系统面临脱碳目标的一个组成部分。本文提出了一种以电转气为重点的开放优化模型，用于研究未来城市能源系统的成本高效设计和运行。该模型能够通过对多个能量向量（包括电力、加热和冷却以及不同的工厂组件）进行建模来区分不同电转气配置的优势。通过一个案例研究说明了构建的多向量模型的有用性，该案例研究在一个中等规模的北欧城市的背景下研究了电转气的好处。结果表明，该城市能够在电转气的帮助下实现碳中和。电转气通过减少对储热和传输容量的需求来节省成本。当减排目标高且输电扩容成本高时，节约最大。由于成本和年度可用性，与从烟道气中的燃烧后捕获相比，直接空气捕获似乎是优越的二氧化碳来源。案例研究表明分布式电转气没有经济效益。