TY - JOUR
T1 - Synergy potential for oil and geothermal energy exploitation
AU - Ziabakhsh-Ganji, Zaman
AU - Nick, Hamidreza M.
AU - Donselaar, Marinus E.
AU - Bruhn, David F.
PY - 2018/2/15
Y1 - 2018/2/15
N2 - A new solution for harvesting energy simultaneously from two different sources of energy by combining geothermal energy production and thermal enhanced heavy oil recovery is introduced. Numerical simulations are employed to evaluate the feasibility of generating energy from geothermal resources, both for thermally enhanced oil recovery from a heavy oil reservoir and for direct heating purposes. A single phase non-isothermal fluid flow modeling for geothermal doublet system and a two-phase non-isothermal fluid flow modelling for water flooding in an oil reservoir are utilised. Sensitivity and feasibility analyses of the synergy potential of thermally-enhanced oil recovery and geothermal energy production are performed. A series of simulations are carried out to examine the effects of reservoir properties on energy consumption and oil recovery for different injection rates and injection temperature. Our results show that total oil production strongly depends on the shape of heat plume which can be affected by porosity, permeability, injection temperature, well spacing and injection rate in the oil reservoir. The favourable oil recovery obtains at high amount of (a) injection rate, (b) injection temperature, (c) porosity and (d) low amount of oil reservoir permeability respectively. Furthermore, our study indicates the wellbore spacing plays an important role in oil recovery and an optimum wellbore spacing can be established. The analyses suggest that the extra amount of oil produced by utilising the geothermal energy could make the geothermal business case independent and may be a viable option to reduce the overall project cost. Furthermore, the results display that the enhance oil productions are able to reduce the required subsidy for a single doublet geothermal project up to 50%.
AB - A new solution for harvesting energy simultaneously from two different sources of energy by combining geothermal energy production and thermal enhanced heavy oil recovery is introduced. Numerical simulations are employed to evaluate the feasibility of generating energy from geothermal resources, both for thermally enhanced oil recovery from a heavy oil reservoir and for direct heating purposes. A single phase non-isothermal fluid flow modeling for geothermal doublet system and a two-phase non-isothermal fluid flow modelling for water flooding in an oil reservoir are utilised. Sensitivity and feasibility analyses of the synergy potential of thermally-enhanced oil recovery and geothermal energy production are performed. A series of simulations are carried out to examine the effects of reservoir properties on energy consumption and oil recovery for different injection rates and injection temperature. Our results show that total oil production strongly depends on the shape of heat plume which can be affected by porosity, permeability, injection temperature, well spacing and injection rate in the oil reservoir. The favourable oil recovery obtains at high amount of (a) injection rate, (b) injection temperature, (c) porosity and (d) low amount of oil reservoir permeability respectively. Furthermore, our study indicates the wellbore spacing plays an important role in oil recovery and an optimum wellbore spacing can be established. The analyses suggest that the extra amount of oil produced by utilising the geothermal energy could make the geothermal business case independent and may be a viable option to reduce the overall project cost. Furthermore, the results display that the enhance oil productions are able to reduce the required subsidy for a single doublet geothermal project up to 50%.
KW - Energy production
KW - Geothermal doublet
KW - Heat plume
KW - Net present value
KW - Non-isothermal flow
KW - Thermal enhanced heavy oil recovery
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85040241807&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a819e22c-d602-47ee-888c-5175ffd375f9
U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.12.113
DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.12.113
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85040241807
SN - 0306-2619
VL - 212
SP - 1433
EP - 1447
JO - Applied Energy
JF - Applied Energy
ER -