Chingshui geothermal field is one of the promising geothermal prospects in Taiwan because of its relatively high resource temperature and available geological and reservoir studies. During its development phase, numerous shallow and deep wells were drilled for exploration and production, and reservoir flow and storage capacities were estimated from flow tests in some wells. From earlier studies, we concluded that the major reasons for the relatively low level of power generated in the 1980s were the high skin factor in the wells drilled with mud and the lack of produced water reinjection. In this study, the power capacities of wells and recoverable geothermal reserves at the Chingshui field were re-assessed based on the current availability of advanced binary-cycle power plants and downhole pumping technologies. Given (a) the reservoir properties of Chingshui as penetrated by the wells, (b) a minimum fluid temperature of 180?C, (c) the range of skin factor (6.6 to -2) achievable by the present drilling technology, and (d) the present state of binary plants and downhole pump technologies, we estimated conservatively that the net generation capacity per well achievable by pumping would range from 2 to 7 MW. From a probabilistic volumetric approach, the total recoverable geothermal reserve estimated in the area is sufficient for a plant capacity of at least 22 MW, and most-likely 32 MW. These results suggest the possible number of wells needed for developing the power capacity specified. All these analyses indicate that it is possible to develop a 20 to 30 MW, binary-cycle power plant at the Chingshui field provided the skin effect in current wells can be reduced or new production wells are drilled.

Press the Back button in your browser, or search again.

Copyright 2006, Stanford Geothermal Program: Readers who download papers from this site should honor the copyright of the original authors and may not copy or distribute the work further without the permission of the original publisher.