Current Status of the Korean EGS Pilot Plant Project

Abstract

Korean government launched a geothermal power generation project in Pohang, southeastern part of Korea, adopting Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) technology at the end of 2010. The EGS pilot plant project is the first attempt to realize geothermal power generation in Korea. It is a five-year term, government funded and industry matching project. The project consists of two phases: I) site preparation, drilling down to a 3 km deep well and to confirm the temperature anomaly in two years, and II) extending the 3 km deep well down to 4.5 - 5 km, hydraulic stimulation and reservoir creation, drilling another well and completing doublet system, and finally installing a MW class binary power plant in another three years. During the first phase, geophysical data were reassessed and stress measurement along an exploratory hole was made to figure out stress distribution around the site. A micro-seismicity monitoring system with nine borehole three-component accelerometers has been installed and is currently under operation. The first well spudded in September, 2012 and reached 2,241 m GL in December, and drilling has been temporarily stopped. During the drilling, a seismic-while-drilling (SWD) survey was tried by deploying four radial surface geophone arrays to determine velocity structure which is critical in micro-seismic interpretation. Drilling of the first well re-started in May 2013, reached 3,547 m of granite basement in July and again temporarily stopped until the end of August. Progress of the drilling has been delayed mostly due to lack of experience in deep drilling and engineering, and will be completed by the end of November 2013. First hydraulic stimulation for testing and creating geothermal reservoir is scheduled to be performed early 2014 which will be followed by detailed assessment of reservoir, next well design, and so on.