Soultz-sous-Forêts Geothermal Reservoir: Structural Model Update and Thermo-Hydraulic Numerical Simulations Based on Three Years of Operation Data

The geothermal powerplant of Soultz-sous-Forêts (France) is investigating the possibility of producing more energy with the same infrastructure by reinjecting the geothermal fluid at lower temperatures. Indeed, during the operation of the powerplant, the geothermal fluid is currently reinjected at 60–70 °C in a deep fractured granite reservoir, and the MEET project aims to test its reinjection at 40 °C. A 3D hydrothermal study was performed in order to evaluate the spreading of the thermal front during colder reinjection and its impact on the production temperature. In the first step, a 3D structural model at fault scale was created, integrating pre-existing models from 2D vintage seismic profiles, vertical seismic profiles, seismic cloud structure and borehole image logs calibrated with well data. This geometrical model was then adapted to be able to run hydrothermal simulation. In the third step, a 3D hydrothermal model was built based on the structural model. After calibration, the effect of colder reinjection on the production temperature was calculated. The results show that a decrease of 10 °C in the injection temperature leads to a drop in the production temperature of 2 °C after 2 years, reaching 3 °C after 25 years of operation. Lastly, the accuracy of the structural model on which the simulations are based is discussed and an update of the structural model is proposed in order to better reproduce the observations.

A Project To Estimate The Power Capacity Of Geothermal Power Plants Based On The Enthalpy Of Geothermal Fluid And Plant Design

Surface phenomena that signal the presence of viable geothermal energy can be found in various locations in Nigeria. None of these locations have been explored extensively to determine the feasibility of sustainable geothermal energy development for electricity generation or direct heating purposes. In this context, the present study aims to provide insight into the energy potential of such development based on the enthalpy estimation of geothermal reservoirs. This particular project was conducted to determine the power output from a geothermal resource given an estimated enthalpy of the geothermal fluid. The process route chosen for this project is the single-flash geothermal power plant because of the temperature (180℃) and unique property of the geothermal fluid (a mixture of hot water and steam that exists as a liquid under high pressure). The Ikogosi warm spring in Ekiti State, Nigeria was chosen as the site location for this power plant. To support food security efforts in Africa, this project proposes the cascading of a hot water stream from the flash tank to serve direct heat purposes in agriculture for food preservation, before re-injection to the reservoir. The flowrate of the geothermal fluid to the flash separator was chosen as 3125 tonnes/hr. The power output from a single well using a single flash geothermal plant was evaluated to be 11.3 MW*. This result was obtained by applying basic thermodynamic principles, including material balance, energy balance, and enthalpy calculations. This particular project is a prelude to a robust model that will accurately determine the power capacity of geothermal power plants based on the enthalpy of geothermal fluid, size of the geothermal resource, and different plant designs. I hope that the knowledge gained from the study will promote best practices in geothermal engineering and emphasize appropriate planning for, and implementation of, geothermal plants.

Exergoeconomic Optimization of Polymeric Heat Exchangers for Geothermal Direct Applications

The highest economic costs of a geothermal plant are basically related to well drilling and heat exchanger maintenance cost due to the chemical aggressiveness of geothermal fluid. The possibility to reduce these costs represents an opportunity to push toward geothermal plants development. Such challenges are even more important in the sites with a low-medium temperature geothermal fluids (90–120 °C) availability, where the use of these fluids for direct thermal uses can be very advantageous. For this reason, in this study, a direct geothermal heating system for a building will be investigated by considering a plastic plate heat exchanger. The choice of a polymeric heat exchanger for this application is upheld by its lower purchase cost and its higher fouling resistance than the common metal heat exchangers, overcoming the economic issues related to conventional geothermal plant. Thus, the plastic plate heat exchanger was, firstly, geometrical and thermodynamical modeled and, after, exergoeconomic optimized. In particular, an exergoeconomic analysis was assessed on the heat exchanger system by using a MATLAB and REFPROP environment, that allows for determination of the exergoeconomic costs of the geothermal fluid extraction, the heat exchanger, and the heating production. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the effect of main design variable (number of plates/channels) and thermodynamic variable (inlet temperature of geothermal fluid) on yearly exergoeconomic product cost. Then, the proposed methodology was applied to a case study in South of Italy, where a low-medium enthalpy geothermal potential exists. The plate-heat exchanger was used to meet the space heating requests of a single building by the exploitation of low-medium temperature geothermal fluids availability in the selected area. The results show that the inlet temperature of geothermal fluid influences the exergoeconomic cost more than the geometrical parameter. The variation of the exergoeconomic cost of heat exchanger with the inlet geothermal fluid temperature is higher than the change of the exergoeconomic costs associated to wells drilling and pumping with respect to the same variable. This is due the fact that, in the selected zone of South of Italy, it is possible to find geothermal fluid in the temperature range of 90–120 °C, at shallow depth. The product exergoeconomic cost is the lowest when the temperature is higher than 105 °C; thus, the smallest heat exchange area is required. The exergoeconomic optimization determines an optimum solution with a total product cost of 922 €/y for a temperature of geothermal fluid equal to 117 °C and with a number of plates equal to 15.

A Project To Estimate The Power Capacity Of Geothermal Power Plants Based On The Enthalpy Of Geothermal Fluid And Plant Design

Nigeria has some surface phenomena that indicate the presence of viable geothermal energy. None of these locations have been explored extensively to determine the feasibility of sustainable geothermal energy development for electricity generation or direct heating. In this context, the present study aims to provide insight into the energy potential of such development based on the enthalpy estimation of geothermal reservoirs. This particular project was conducted to determine the amount of energy that can be gotten from a geothermal reservoir for electricity generation and direct heating based on the estimated enthalpy of the geothermal fluid. The process route chosen for this project is the single-flash geothermal power plant because of the temperature (180℃) and unique property of the geothermal fluid (a mixture of hot water and steam that exists as a liquid under high pressure). The Ikogosi warm spring in Ekiti State, Nigeria was chosen as the site location for this power plant. To support food security efforts in Africa, this project proposes the cascading of a hot water stream from the flash tank to serve direct heat purposes in agriculture for food preservation, before re-injection to the reservoir. The flowrate of the geothermal fluid to the flash separator was chosen as 3125 tonnes/hr. The power output from a single well using a single flash geothermal plant was evaluated to be 11.3 MW*. This result was obtained by applying basic thermodynamic principles, including material balance, energy balance, and enthalpy calculations. This particular project is a prelude to a robust model that will accurately determine the power capacity of geothermal power plants based on the enthalpy of fluid and different plant designs.

Different Geothermal Power Cycle Configurations Cost Estimation Models

An economic assessment of different geothermal power cycle configurations to generate cost models is conducted in this study. The thermodynamic and exergoeconomic modeling of the cycles is performed in MATLAB coupled to Refprop. The models were derived based on robust multivariable regression to minimize the residuals by using the genetic algorithm. The cross-validation approach is applied to determine a dataset to examine the model in the training phase for validation and reduce the overfitting problem. The generated cost models are the total cost rate, the plant's total cost, and power generation cost. The cost models and the relevant coefficients are generated based on the most compatibilities and lower error. The results showed that one of the most influential factors on the ORC cycle is the working fluid type, which significantly affects the final economic results. Other parameters that considerably impact economic models results, of all configurations, are geothermal fluid pressure and temperature and inlet pressure of turbine. Rising the geothermal fluid mass flow rate has a remarkable impact on cost models as the capacity and size of equipment increases. The generated cost models in this study can estimate the mentioned cost parameters with an acceptable deviation and provide a fast way to predict the total cost of the power plants.

An Integrated Survey of the Geochemical Study at the Blawan-Ijen Area, East Java

Geothermal energy is a renewable alternative energy source. One of the analyses used to determine the characteristics of a geothermal field is water geochemical analysis. The target of this research is the Blawan-Ijen geothermal prospect area, Bondowoso. The geochemical analysis was carried out using AAS, Spectrophotometer and acid-base titration. This survey shows the characteristics of the geothermal system and geothermal fluid in the Blawan area, Ijen. From the chemical analysis of hot water, we found that the types of geothermal water fluids in the Blawan Ijen area vary. In samples BL1, BL2 and BL5 included in the type of Sulphate Water with the dominant elemental Sulphate (SO4) content is also known as Sulfuric Acid Water (Acid-Sulphate Water). Then for the BL4 sample included in the type of chloride water. This type of water is a type of geothermal fluid found in most areas with high-temperature systems. Areas with large-scale hot springs flowing with high Cl concentrations originate from deep reservoirs and indicate permeable zones in those areas. However, this area may not be located above the main upflow zone. There are several other possibilities, such as topographic influences, which can significantly impact hydrological control. The presence of chlorine gas can also identify high zones' permeable areas (e.g., faults, breccia eruptions or conduit). In contrast, BL3 samples are included in the Bicarbonate Water-type. The element HCO3 (bicarbonate) is the most dominant element (main anion) and contains CO2 gas from the chemical analysis results. HCO3 water is generally formed in marginal and near-surface areas in systems dominated by volcanic rocks, where CO2 gas and condensed water vapour into groundwater. The vapour condensation can either heat the groundwater or be heated by steam (steam heated) to form an HCO3 solution