Objective
Objectives
There is a considerable amount of heat stored in the earth's crust but only a marginal amount of this "clean energy" is
being exploited. The European Hot Dry Rock research programme at Soultz is developing an "engineered system" whereby
geothermal energy can be extracted from deep hot rocks by
circulating fluid through the rock mass after hydraulic
stimulation of the natural fracture system.
The 1996-97 programme has the objectives of obtaining a design of a Scientific Pilot Plant, determining design parameters for the volume of rock to be stimulated (the underground heat
exchanger), compiling a market vs. resource study and drawing up a proposal for the Scientific Pilot Plant.
Technical approach
There are two deep wells about 450m apart (GPK1 to 3600m depth and GPK2 to 3872m depth) and four shallow wells (down to 1.5 - 2.2 km) available for experimentation.
In 1996, the second deep well (GPK2) will be cleaned to a
maximum depth and the infrastructure will be upgraded on both sites (GPK1 & GPK2) to facilitate the experimental programme. Following this, the well GPK2 will be hydraulically stimulated at flow rates up to 80 1/s. The injectivity / productivity of GPK2 prior and after stimulation will be evaluated.
In 1997, the main fracture system at 3500 m depth in GPK1 will be isolated and hydraulically stimulated. After stimulation, it is planned to carry out 4 months circulation at a
production flow rate of 20-30 l/s depending on the result of stimulation. Fluid will be produced from GPK2 using a
downhole pump and injected into GPK1 after being cooled via a heat exchanger. The surface equipment will be designed to
ensure that the fluid produced is not exposed to oxygen and
maintained at a pressure exceeding the bubble point pressure.
During the whole period, the reservoir will be evaluated using hydraulic and tracer tests, geochemical sampling, microseismic and surface pressure monitoring and other measurements.
Expected achievements and exploitation
It is expected to show:
- that the Soultz concept, which requires some limited
natural permeability, is a good approach in extracting heat
from hot rocks under Central European conditions;
- that 20-30 l/s can be circulated for about 4 months;
- how corrosion and geochemical problems in the surface
equipment can be overcome;
- better understanding in the stimulation strategy and the
diagnostic methods such as microseismic, tracers, production logging, hydraulic analysis etc.
The next phase, i.e; the Scientific Pilot Plant, is expected to be led by an Industrial Consortium.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences economics and business economics production economics productivity
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy geothermal energy
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Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
67250 Soultz-sous-Forêts
France
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.