scholarly journals Hydro-Thermal Modeling for Geothermal Energy Extraction from Soultz-sous-Forêts, France

Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 464
Author(s):  
Saeed Mahmoodpour ◽  
Mrityunjay Singh ◽  
Aysegul Turan ◽  
Kristian Bär ◽  
Ingo Sass

The deep geothermal energy project at Soultz-sous-Forêts is located in the Upper Rhine Graben, France. As part of the Multidisciplinary and multi-contact demonstration of EGS exploration and Exploitation Techniques and potentials (MEET) project, this study aimed to evaluate the possibility of extracting higher amounts of energy from the existing industrial infrastructure. To achieve this objective, the effect of reinjecting fluid at lower temperature than the current fluid injection temperature of 70 °C was modeled and the drop in the production wellhead temperature for 100 years of operation was quantified. Two injection-production rate scenarios were considered and compared for their effect on overall production wellhead temperature. For each scenario, reinjection temperatures of 40, 50, and 60 °C were chosen and compared with the 70 °C injection case. For the lower production rate scenario, the results show that the production wellhead temperature is approximately 1–1.5 °C higher than for the higher production rate scenario after 100 years of operation. In conclusion, no significant thermal breakthrough was observed with the applied flow rates and lowered injection temperatures even after 100 years of operation.

Author(s):  
Saeed Mahmoodpour ◽  
Mrityunjay Singh ◽  
Aysegul Turan ◽  
Kristian Bär ◽  
Ingo Sass

The deep geothermal industrial project at Soultz-sous-Forêts is located in the Upper Rhine Graben, France. As part of the MEET project, this study aims to evaluate the possibility of extracting higher amounts of energy from the existing industrial infrastructure. To achieve this objective, the effect of reinjecting fluid at lower temperature than the current fluid injection temperature of 70 ℃ was modelled and the drop in the production wellhead temperature for 100 years of operation was quantified. Two injection-production rate scenarios were considered and compared for their effect on overall production wellhead temperature. For each scenario, reinjection temperatures of 40 ℃, 50 ℃ and 60 ℃ were chosen and compared with the 70 ℃ injection case. For the lower production rate scenario, the results show that the production wellhead temperature is approximately 1-1.5 ℃ higher than for the higher production rate scenario after 100 years of operation. In conclusion, no significant thermal breakthrough has been observed with the applied flow rates and lowered injection temperatures even after 100 years of operation.


Geosciences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 271
Author(s):  
Béatrice A. Ledésert ◽  
Ronan L. Hébert ◽  
Justine Mouchot ◽  
Clio Bosia ◽  
Guillaume Ravier ◽  
...  

The Soultz-Sous-Forêts geothermal site (France) operates three deep wells for electricity production. During operation, scales precipitate within the surface installation as (Ba, Sr) sulfate and (Pb, As, Sb) sulfide types. Scales have an impact on lowering energy production and inducing specific waste management issues. Thus scaling needs to be reduced for which a thorough characterization of the scales has to be performed. The geothermal brine is produced at 160 °C and reinjected at 70 °C during normal operation. In the frame of the H2020 MEET project, a small heat exchanger was tested in order to allow higher energy production, by reinjecting the geothermal fluid at 40 °C. Samples of scales were analyzed by XRD and SEM-EDS, highlighting that mostly galena precipitates and shows various crystal shapes. These shapes can be related to the turbulence of the flow and the speed of crystal growth. Where the flow is turbulent (entrance, water box, exit), crystals grow quickly and mainly show dendritic shape. In the tubes, where the flow is laminar, crystals grow more slowly and some of them are characterized by well-developed faces leading to cubes and derived shapes. The major consequence of the temperature decrease is the increased scaling phenomenon.


2015 ◽  
Vol 203 (1) ◽  
pp. 614-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Fuhrmann ◽  
M. Caro Cuenca ◽  
A. Knöpfler ◽  
F.J. van Leijen ◽  
M. Mayer ◽  
...  

PalZ ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Reichenbacher München ◽  
Jean Gaudant Paris ◽  
Thomas W. Griessemer

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Catinat ◽  
Benjamin Brigaud ◽  
Marc Fleury ◽  
Miklos Antics ◽  
Pierre Ungemach ◽  
...  

<p>With around 50 heating networks today operating, the aera around Paris is the European region which concentrates the most heating network production units in terms of deep geothermal energy. In France, the energy-climate strategy plans to produce 6.4TWh in 2023, compared to 1.5TWh produced in 2016. Despite an exceptional geothermal potential, the current average development rate of 70MWh/year will not allow this objective to be achieved, it would be necessary to reach a rate of 6 to 10 times higher. The optimization of the use of deep geothermal energy is a major challenge for France, and in Ile-de-France, which has a population of nearly 12 million inhabitants. This project aims to reconstruct and simulate heat flows in the Paris Basin using an innovative methodology (1) to characterize, predict and model the properties of reservoirs (facies, porosity, permeability) and (2) simulate future circulations and predict the performance at a given location (sedimentary basin) on its geothermal potential. This study focuses on a high density area of well infrastructures around Cachan, (8 doublets, 1 triplet in 56 km<sup>2</sup>). A new sub-horizontal doublet concept has been recently (2017) drilled at Cachan to enhance heat exchange in medium to low permeability formations. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR T2) logs have been recorded in the sub-horizontal well (GCAH2) providing information on pore size distribution and permeability. We integrated all logging data (gamma ray, density, resistivity, sonic, NRM T2) of the 19 wells in the area and 120 thin section observations from cuttings to derive a combined electrofacies-sedimentary facies description. A total of 10 facies is grouped into 5 facies associations coded in all the 19 wells according to depths and 10 3rd order stratigraphic sequences are recognized. The cell size of the 3D grid was set to 50 m x 50 m for the XY dimensions. The Z-size depends on the thickness of the sub-zones, averaging 5 m. The resulting 3D grid is composed of a total of nearly 8.10<sup>5</sup>cells. After upscaled, facies and stratigraphic surfaces are used to create a reliable model using the “Truncated Gaussian With Trends” algorithm. The petrophysical distribution “Gaussian Random Function Simulation” is used to populate the entire grid with properties, included 2000 NMR data, considering each facies independently. The best reservoir is mainly located in the shoal deposits oolitic grainstones with average porosity of 12.5% and permeability of 100 mD. Finally, hydrodynamic and thermal simulations have been performed using Pumaflow to give information on the potential risk of interference between the doublets in the area and advices are given in the well trajectory to optimize the connectivity and the lifetime of the system. NMR data, especially permeability, allow to greater improve the simulations, defining time probabilities of thermal breakthrough in an area of high density wells.</p>


2016 ◽  
pp. 53-56
Author(s):  
J Frankovská ◽  
M Ondrášik ◽  
Ch Källberg

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