Abstract

ABSTRACT A series of hydraulic stimulation experiments were performed in the Bedretto Underground Laboratory for Geosciences and Geoenergies in Switzerland to answer questions about the creation of an engineered geothermal reservoir in crystalline rocks. A 400 m long stimulation borehole was divided into 15 intervals by a multi-packer system. In this work, we present preliminary results of interval 8 in which two injection phases were performed with a 3.5 months gap in between. The two phases differ in the injected volume and injection protocol (pressure vs. flow rate controlled). Within the interval, we mapped a cluster of sub-parallel pre-existing open fractures that are reasonably well oriented for reactivation in the estimated stress field. The interval pressure and flow rate data from the injections reveal a reactivation of the pre-existing fractures, associated with a large increase in injectivity. A comparison of the expected stress field around the stimulation interval with the observed reactivation pressure indicates that the fractures were likely reactivated by hydraulic shearing. The reactivation is also supported by other data sets from the extensive monitoring network, e.g. distributed temperature and strain sensing. INTRODUCTION Engineered geothermal systems (EGS) have received increasing interest in recent years because they are considered a low emission, renewable energy source (Lu, 2018; Aghahosseini and Breyer, 2020). An EGS aims to extract geothermal energy from crystalline basement rocks with low permeability. The permeability is enhanced either by hydraulic shearing of natural fractures or shear zones, or by hydraulic fracturing of intact rock, or by a mixture of both (McClure and Horne, 2014). This permeability enhancement is often linked to induced seismicity, which can reach damaging levels if large fault zones are reactivated (e.g. Deichmann and Giardini, 2009; Evans et al., 2012; Ellsworth et al., 2019). To address this challenge, several scaled-down in situ hydraulic stimulation experiments have been conducted in underground research laboratories in representative crystalline rock types (e.g. Amann et al., 2018; Zimmermann et al., 2019; Schoenball et al., 2020; Fu et al., 2021).

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