The simulation of fluid flow and heat transport in a reservoir has been an essential part in the planning process for geothermal projects for the past 30 years. Various sophisticated simulator codes are available today, capable of handling almost any hydrogeological setting and project complexities possible. However, these codes are valuable only in the hands of qualified modelers and the cost and effort required for a model may be inappropriate for the scale of some projects.

We have developed a simple tool with various applications for the thermal utilization of groundwater (for heating and/or cooling). The tool may be used in a preliminary planning phase to study the hydraulic and thermal processes in the aquifer, and to optimize the design. It also serves well for the management of projects competing for one aquifer. All considerations are based on the local conditions.

Our tool, which we refer to as a groundwater energy designer, enables consultants, drillers, technical engineers and licensing officers
• to determine the necessary flow rates for a desired heat (or cold) output,
• to specify the characteristics of the wells in order to meet this demand with the given geohydraulic conditions on site,
• to simulate the flow and heat transport in the aquifer (and surrounding layers) based on a set of lumped parameters and the local hydraulic flow field and
• to visualize the effects of the utilization for user-defined locations, flow rates, and production and reinjection scenarios.

The innovative part of the tool is a simulator which selects the appropriate model domain, boundary conditions and discretization without any intervention of the user being necessary. The computing time is extremely short and the results are presented right away as isolines of temperature and drawdown for the simulated case.

Our groundwater energy designer has been verified with a set of single-phase TOUGH2 calculations.

In this paper we present the advantages and limitations for the application of our tool, and potential project objectives attainable with it.

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