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Sedimentary basins are attractive for geothermal development due to their ubiquitous presence, high perme ability, and extensive lateral extent. Geothermal energy from sedimentary basins has mostly been used for direct heating purposes due to their relatively low temperatures, compared to conventional hydrothermal systems. However, there is an increasing interest in using sedimentary geothermal energy for electric power generation due to the advances in conversion technologies using binary cycles that allow electricity generation from reservoir temperatures as low as 80 ◦C. This work develops and implements analytical solutions for calculating reservoir impedance, reservoir heat depletion, and wellbore heat loss in sedimentary reservoirs that are laterally extensive, homogeneous, horizontally isotropic and have uniform thickness. Reservoir impedance and wellbore heat loss solutions are combined with a power cycle model to estimate the electricity generation potential. Results from the analytical solutions are in good agreement with numerically computed reservoir models. Our results suggest that wellbore heat loss can be neglected in many cases of electricity generation calculations, depending on the reservoir transmissivity. The reservoir heat depletion solution shows how reservoir tempera ture and useful lifetime behave as a function of flow rate, initial heat within the reservoir, and heat conduction from the surroundings to the reservoir. Overall, our results suggest that in an exploratory sedimentary geothermal field, these analytical solutions can provide reliable first order estimations without incurring intensive computational costs.
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A simplified method to evaluate geothermal storage in an aquifer with consideration of heat transfer between aquifer and caprock/baserock
Storing and extracting heat during different seasons of the year is possible through the utilization of a ground aquifer with an open loop Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) system. Being able to predict the hydrothermal performance of geothermal storage is required for an efficient operation of the system for cooling and heating of buildings. Complex 2D and 3D hydrothermal numerical models can simulate the thermal performance of geothermal storage accurately but often lack the desired computational speed for conducting large number of simulations for performance optimization. Instead, a 1D radial model can be used to conduct fast evaluation. However, it is important that the model computes the amount of heat loss from an aquifer into the overburden and underlying layers accurately to evaluate the amount of geothermal storage in the aquifer at different times. In this study, a source term is introduced into a 1D model to simulate the heat transfer between the aquifer and caprock/baserock in the vertical direction. The following two heat loss models are introduced in the heat advection-conduction equation: (i) Newton’s heating/cooling law, which leads to a closed form solution, and (ii) a conduction-based semi-analytical model, which requires a 1D finite element solution. When compared to a full 2D axisymmetric simulation result, it was found that the Newton’s heating/cooling law model with a constant heat transfer coefficient works well in cases of fast heat flow rate in thick aquifers of around 100 meters. But large errors in estimating heat dissipation are observed in cases with low heat flow rate in thin aquifers, especially for simulations exceeding two to five years. On the other hand, the model with the conduction-based semi-analytical solution gives a better match for these conditions.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1903296
- PAR ID:
- 10232758
- Editor(s):
- McCartney, J.S.; Tomac, I.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- E3S Web of Conferences
- Volume:
- 205
- ISSN:
- 2267-1242
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 07007
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202020507007
