Electric Power Generation, Specific Capital Cost, and Specific Power for Advanced Geothermal Systems (AGS)
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Date
2021-07
Publication Type
Conference Paper
ETH Bibliography
yes
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Abstract
Advanced Geothermal Systems (AGS) generate electric power using a closed-loop system, by circulating a working fluid through a long wellbore and extracting geothermal heat only through conduction from rock surrounding the wellbore. Quantitative evaluations of electric power and cost are not available.
In this paper, we simulate an AGS for a wide range of system parameters after modifying the existing genGEO simulator by replacing the porous reservoir with one or more horizontal lateral wells which are spaced apart to limit thermal interference. Our results include the computation of the electric power generation, capital cost, specific capital cost (SpCC) (i.e., dollars per Watt), and the specific power (i.e., Watts per well meter).
We find that using CO2 as the working fluid rather than water increases the electric power generated from the system. Additionally, for any vertical well length, there exists an optimal lateral well length, an optimal mass flowrate, and an optimal well diameter which minimize cost. We also show that ideal well costs and high geothermal gradients significantly decrease the overall cost.
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Publication status
published
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Editor
Book title
46th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering 2021
Journal / series
Volume
2
Pages / Article No.
705 - 716
Publisher
Curran
Event
46th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Geothermal energy; Closed-loop; Renewable energy; Electric power generation; AGS
Organisational unit
09494 - Saar, Martin O. / Saar, Martin O.
Notes
Conference lecture held on February 16, 2021. Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) the conference was conducted virtually.