Our work on reservoir modeling is mainly from a cost accounting standpoint. Our interest has been concerned with the economic aspects of reservoir exploration, development, and operation and the impact of these activities on the ultimate cost of geothermal energy. We have modeled the above ground aspects of delivering energy from geothermal wells, but we have treated the below ground flow as a ìblack boxíí which yields a fluid of specified characteristics at the wellhead. We hope to include a physical simulation model of geothermal reservoirs in our economic model sometime in the future. We have developed, under ERDA sponsorship, an economic model for geothermal cost analysis, called GEOCOST.

The GEOCOST computer program is a simulation model which calculates the cost of generating electricity from geothermal energy. GEOCOST will simulate the production of electricity from most types of geothermal resources. It is composed of two principal parts: a reservoir model which simulates the exploration, development, and operation of a geothermal reservoir, and a powerplant model which simulates the design, construction, and operation of the powerplant. Five different powerplant types can be simulated: flashed steam, binary fluid cycle, a hybrid combined flashed steam-binary fluid cycle, total flow, and geopressured reservoirs.

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