Fluid and Heat Flow in a Geothermal Reservoir: Reinjection

(iii) Maintaining the Pressure in the Reservoir
Benefits of Geothermal Energy

An alternative source of energy with has considerable environmental
advantage.

Clean and renewable source of energy.

No chemical pollutants or wastes are generated due to geothermal
emission.

Reliability of the power resource.

Hence research has been directed in several directions like
exploration of geothermal resources, modeling the characteristics of
different types of geothermal reservoirs and technologies to extract
energy from them.
Fig. Convective flow and heat transport inside a Geothermal Reservoir
Geothermal Energy as an Alternative Source of Energy
Heat Transfer Processes Involved

The Advective mode
The transfer of energy between an object and its environment, due to fluid
motion.

Conduction or diffusion
The transfer of energy between objects that are in physical contact.

Heat Transfer (loss) to the over and underlying media
This mode is normally considered to be conductive due to temperature
gradient between the adjacent rock media.
Reinjection into Geothermal Reservoirs

Reinjection is the process of pushing/injecting the heat depleted
geothermal water (after heat extraction for power production) into the
geothermal reservoir again.

Purposes

(i) Safe Disposal of Thermal Wastewater

To avoid thermal and chemical pollution.

(ii) Enhancing Heat Extraction Capacity from Reservoir

Most of the heat energy (80-90%) is stored in the reservoir rocks sand
only a small fraction (10-20%) is present in the reservoir fluid. without
reinjection only a fraction of the total heat energy can be extracted.

Continuous exploitation of geothermal water for power production
causes a pressure drop in the reservoir.
• (iv) Additional Recharge to the Geothermal Reservoir
Geothermal reinjection is essential process for recharging the reservoir,
since natural recharge in most cases is not enough to make up for the
exploitation from the reservoir
Fig. Predicted water level changes
Fig. Increase of steam flow-rate in
(pressure changes) in the geothermal
Laderello, Italy due to introduction of
system in Beijing-city for production
reinjection operation.
scenarios with and without reinjection.
Problems and Obstacles of Reinjection
Thermal-Breakthrough and Cooling of Production Wells

The water injected into the reservoir is much colder than the
reservoir fluid and hence continuous injection results in cooling near
the injection wells.

It generates an interface around the injection well known as the
thermal–front across which the temperature varies from the injection
water temperature.

As the thermal front reaches the production well, the temperature of
the extracted water decreases and the efficiency of the reservoir for
power production is lost.
Fig. Measured and simulated temperature
decline in a well in the Palinpinon field,
Philippines
The Problem of Blockage
Deposition of suspended particles and silica in reinjection water.
Cost of Reinjection
Reinjection systems involves lot of initial costs for drilling and setting–up the
wells and pipes for supply
Our research
Problem of thermal-breakthrough is one of the biggest problems
resulting from the reinjection process.
In designing the reinjection system or the injection-production well
scheme, taking into account this problem is utmost essential.
The key factor here is to model the heat transfer and the transient
temperature distribution in the geothermal reservoir domain due to
the reinjection of geothermal wastewater or in other words to model
the advancement of the cold-water thermal front which is generated
due to reinjection.
Fig. Generation and movement of thermal front with time
Dr. Sayantan Ganguly, Civil Engineering Department and Divecha Centre for Climate Change,
Indian Institute of Science; email: sayforall@gmail.com/sayantan @civil.iisc.ernet.in