Low-Carbon Economic Operation of Natural Gas Demand Side Integrating Dynamic Pricing Signals and User Behavior Modeling

Natural gas plays a key role in the low-carbon energy transition due to its clean and efficient characteristics, yet challenges remain in balancing economic efficiency, user behavior, and carbon emission constraints in demand-side scheduling. This study proposes a low-carbon economic operation model for terminal natural gas systems, integrating price elasticity and differentiated user behavior with carbon emission management strategies. To capture diverse demand patterns, dynamic time warping k-medoids clustering is employed, while scheduling optimization is achieved through a multi-objective framework combining NSGA-III, the entropy weight (EW) method, and the VIKOR decision-making approach. Using real-world data from a gas station in Xi’an, simulation results show that the model reduces gas supply costs by 3.45% for residential users and 6.82% for non-residential users, increases user welfare by 4.64% and 88.87%, and decreases carbon emissions by 115.18 kg and 2156.8 kg, respectively. Moreover, non-residential users achieve an additional reduction in carbon trading costs of 183.85 CNY. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of integrating dynamic price signals, user behavior modeling, and carbon constraints into a unified optimization framework, offering decision support for sustainable and flexible natural gas scheduling.