Background and Progress of the Korean EGS Pilot Project

Abstract

The 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 a 3 km deep well and confirming 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 the stress distribution around the site. A micro-seismicity monitoring system with nine, borehole three-component accelerometers has been installed and is currently in operation. The first well spudded in September, 2012 and reached 2,241 m in December, and drilling has 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 restarted in May, 2013 and reached 4,127 m in granite basement in October. Progress of the drilling has been delayed mostly due to lack of experience in deep drilling and engineering. First hydraulic stimulation for testing and creating geothermal reservoir is scheduled to be performed in 2014 which will be followed by detailed assessment of the reservoir, next well design, and so on.