Recent US Hot Dry Rock Reservoir Testing and Hydrothermal Modeling

摘要

Testing is in progress at the site of the US Hot Dry Rock (HDR) reservoir at Fenton Hill, New Mexico. Several hydraulic stimulation tests have been conducted in the reservoir since January 1985. The reservoir being tested is at a nominal depth of 3650 m (11,975 ft). In a successful flow-through test conducted in 1986, 37,000 m sup 3 (9.8 million gal) of cold water was injected at controlled rates up to 0.0265 m sup 3 /s (420 gpm). During this test, 23,000 m sup 3 (6.1 million gal) of hot water at temperatures up to 190 sup 0 C was recovered, corresponding to 9 MW thermal power. The injection of large amounts of cold water at high pressures into the naturally fractured, granitic formation leads to complex flow fields, strongly influenced by coupled fluid flow, heat transfer and stress effects. In order to predict reservoir performance over time spans of interest (approx.20 years), it is necessary to evaluate the influence of these coupled processes. This need has led to efforts to upgrade an existing finite element, heat and mass transfer code to include coupled stress effects while retaining the computational efficiency needed for simulations of long-term reservoir performance. This paper describes field test results, a conceptual model of the reservoir, and code development efforts. (ERA citation 12:034794)