GEG Group
CPG
TANGO
ETH Zurich

Sedimentary basin geothermal resource for cost-effective generation of renewable electricity from sequestered carbon dioxide.

2016Presentation41st Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, February 22-24, 2016.

Abstract

We investigated the efficacy of generating electricity using renewable geothermal heat that is extracted by CO2 that is sequestered in sedimentary basins, a process described as CO2 -Plume Geothermal (CPG) energy production. We developed an integrated systems model that combines power plant performance modeling, reservoir modeling, and the economic costs of a CPG power plant and a CO2 storage operation in order to estimate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The integrated systems model is based on inverted fivespot injection patterns that are common in CO2-enhanced oil recovery operations. Our integrated systems model allows for these patterns to be coupled together, so that the CO2 that is extracted by a production well can be composed of portions of the CO2 that was injected in the four neighboring injection wells. We determined the diameter of the individual wells and the size coupled inverted fivespot well patterns that most effectively used the physical and economic economies of scale for the coupled reservoir and power plant. We found that substantial amounts of power, on the order of hundreds of megawatts, can be produced as the size of the injection pattern increases, and that the estimated LCOE decreases as these patterns expand. Given the appropriate combination of depth, geothermal gradient, and permeability, CPG power plants can have LCOEs that are competitive with other unsubsidized sources of electricity.