Response of the Los Azufres Geothermal Field to Four Years of 25 MW Wellhead Generation

Abstract

Production and chemical data have been compiled and on a six-month averaged basis for the first four years of electric energy generation with five 5-MW wellhead generators at the Los Azufres geothermal field. The data were evaluated with respect to the extent of observable thermal drawdown of the reservoir from 25 NW of generation in relation to the estimated capacity of the field of several hundred megawatts of power. The analysis updates the previous one compiled after the first two years of continuous production, at which time the results inidicated that differences in reservoir temperature estimated from geochemical thermometers and well head product ion data were riot statistically significant based on the number of data arid the standard deviations. Analysis of the data after four years of operatiorn were made for the larger number of data arid smaller standard deviations. The results review the adequacy of the samplirig frequency and the reliability of the measuremerits from statistical t-Test of the means of the first and second two-year periods.