Modeling Ground Surface Deformation at the Swiss HEATSTORE Underground Thermal Energy Storage Sites
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2020-04
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Conference Paper
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yes
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Abstract
High temperature (>25 °C) aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES) is a promising technology to store waste heat and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by injecting hot water into the subsurface during the summer months and extracting it for district heating in the winter months. Nevertheless, ensuring the long-term technical success of an HT-ATES project is difficult because it involves complex coupling of fluid flow, heat transfer, and geomechanics. For example, ground surface deformation due to thermo- and poro- elastic deformation could cause damage to nearby infrastructure, and it has not been considered very extensively in the literature. The Swiss HEATSTORE consortium is a group of academic and industrial partners that is developing HT-ATES pilot projects in Geneva and Bern, Switzerland. Possible target formations at the Geneva site include: (a) fractured Cretaceous limestone aquifers interbedded within lower-permeability sedimentary rock and (b) Jurassic reef complex(es), also potentially fractured. In this work we offer numerical modeling support for the Geneva site. A site-specific, hydro-mechanical (HM) model is created, which uses input from the energy systems scenarios and 3D static geological modeling performed by other Swiss consortium partners. Results show that a large uplift (> 5 cm) is possible after one loading cycle, but a sensitivity analysis shows that uplift is decreased to ≤ 0.3 cm if the aquifer permeability is increased or an auxiliary well is included to balance inflow and outflow. Future work includes running coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) models for several loading and unloading cycles. The THM framework can help inform future decisions about the Swiss HT-ATES sites (e.g. the final site selection within the Geneva basin, well spacing, and operating temperature). It can also be applied to understand surface deformation in the context of geothermal energy, carbon sequestration, and at other ATES sites worldwide.
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published
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22046
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ETH Zurich, Institute of Geophysics
Event
World Geothermal Congress (WGC 2020+1)
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Subject
Poroelastic modeling; Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES)
Organisational unit
09494 - Saar, Martin O. / Saar, Martin O.
Notes
Conference lecture held on October 27, 2021. Peer-reviewed accepted conference paper from the WGC in April 2020. Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) the conference was rescheduled from April 26 – May 2, 2020 to May 21–26, 2021, and to October 24–27, 2021