Applicability of Borehole R-1 as BHE for Heating of a Gas Well

Abstract

The idea of using a negative borehole for heating purposes after it has been adapted for a deep borehole heat exchanger is presented in the paper. Borehole R-1 is located at the natural gas field in S-E Poland, where production heads have to be heated in the process of natural gas decompression. Primary fuels could be saved if geothermal energy was used. Besides the concept of the system, there are also the results of economic analysis of this solution described. They are based on a numerical modeling of borehole heat exchanger operation. For this reason, mathematical simulations were performed to predict the production of such a BHE. On this basis the heat carrier temperature over a long exploitation time was obtained. The carrier temperature and reception thermal parameters can be used when determining the feasible direct use of the Earth's heat. A variant employing heat pumps is also analyzed. It enables to obtain larger amounts of heat, though driving compressor has to be used to increase the temperature. This is, however, related with some operating costs.