Techno Economic Evaluation of Soft-Stimulation Measures Under Consideration of Uncertainty

Abstract

Geothermal power production is characterized by a complex cyclic process. Multiple interactions must be considered starting from the mining of the brine as an energy carrier to the reinjection of the cooled thermal water through the energy conversion at surface. An isolated or stepwise assessment of economics, technics and uncertainty partly caused by risk factors does not consider the complex interdependencies of these different fields. Therefore, the integrated geothermal model (IGM) was developed. Interlinking the different areas of the geothermal energy supply shall increase the significance and reliability of the evaluation. The EU research project DESTRESS investigates the practical application of stimulation measures while creating geothermal systems with sufficient productivity for an economic usage of geothermal energy. DESTRESS, with its soft stimulation approach, aims to minimize the environmental impact of stimulation measures to accelerate the time to market of EGS. Risk factors, their evaluation and mitigation play a major role within the project, not only for the practical implementation but also for the economic evaluation of soft stimulation. The paper at hand will present the progress done in techno-economic modelling during the DESTRESS project. This includes Monte-Carlo-Simulation for power plant modelling, the identification and integration of uncertainty as well as the effect of stimulation measures on reservoir performance, and furthermore. The improved IGM is used to evaluate the stimulation techniques investigated and applied during DESTRESS under consideration of uncertainty. The stimulation measures developed, applied and investigated during DESTRESS will be evaluated for power, CHP or heat production at the sites they were applied. Thereby, the evaluation of the measures will be under realistic conditions from a techno-economic point of view.