Numerical modeling of a geothermal reservoir with high permeability in Turkey

Abstract

Geothermal resources have gained great attention because they promise to deliver geographically disperse, carbon-free energy with minimal environmental impact. Natural fracture networks have a major impact on geothermal reservoir heat extraction. The objective of our model is to evaluate the impact of natural fracture networks on a real field geothermal reservoir with high permeability in Turkey. In this work, the thermal embedded discrete fracture model (thermal EDFM) is applied to handle the thermal modeling of complex fracture networks. The thermal non-neighbor connections enable us to efficiently simulate temperature behavior within a massive complex fracture network. A semi-analytical thermal wellbore model is applied to evaluate the heat-loss inside the producer. Using the enthalpy of the producing fluid, the electricity output is evaluated. The system power outputs under different densities of natural fracture networks are compared. Our analysis shows that in geothermal reservoir with high permeability, even with high density of natural fracture networks, the improvement on system performance and efficiency is still minor. The well placement is important to circulation efficiency. In Kizildere field, the horizontal well placement plan has better system performance compared to the vertical well placement.