TY - JOUR
T1 - Risk of surface movements and reservoir deformation for high-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES)
AU - Stricker, Kai
AU - Egert, Robert
AU - Schill, Eva
AU - Kohl, Thomas
N1 - Funding Information:
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was partly supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) and the Project Management Jülich (PtJ) under the grant agreement number 03EE4008C associated with the INSIDE project ( https://inside-geothermie.de/en/inside-en/ ). This study is part of the subtopic “Geoenergy” in the program “MTET—Materials and Technologies for the Energy Transition” of the Helmholtz Association. The authors are responsible for the content of this publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024, The Author(s).
PY - 2024/1/31
Y1 - 2024/1/31
N2 - High-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES) systems are designed for seasonal storage of large amounts of thermal energy to meet the demand of industrial processes or district heating systems at high temperatures (> 100 °C). The resulting high injection temperatures or pressures induce thermo- and poroelastic stress changes around the injection well. This study estimates the impact of stress changes in the reservoir on ground surface deformation and evaluates the corresponding risk. Using a simplified coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) model of the planned DeepStor demonstrator in the depleted Leopoldshafen oil field (Upper Rhine Graben, Germany), we show that reservoir heating is associated with stress changes of up to 6 MPa, which can cause vertical displacements at reservoir depth in the order of 10–3 m in the immediate vicinity of the hot injection well. Both the stress changes and the resulting displacements in the reservoir are dominated by thermoelasticity, which is responsible for up to 90% of the latter. Uplift at the surface, on the contrary, is primarily controlled by poroelasticity with by two orders of magnitude attenuated displacements of << 10–3 m. Our calculations further show that the reservoir depth, elastic modulus, and injection/production rates are the dominant controlling parameters for the uplift, showing variations of up to two order of magnitudes between shallower reservoirs with low elastic moduli and deeper and more competent reservoirs. In addition, our findings demonstrate that the cyclic operation of HT-ATES systems reduces the potential for uplift compared to the continuous injection and production of conventional geothermal doublets, hydrocarbon production, or CO2 storage. Consequently, at realistic production and injection rates and targeting reservoirs at depths of at least several hundred meters, the risk of ground surface movement associated with HT-ATES operations in depleted oil fields in, e.g., the Upper Rhine Graben is negligible.
AB - High-temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES) systems are designed for seasonal storage of large amounts of thermal energy to meet the demand of industrial processes or district heating systems at high temperatures (> 100 °C). The resulting high injection temperatures or pressures induce thermo- and poroelastic stress changes around the injection well. This study estimates the impact of stress changes in the reservoir on ground surface deformation and evaluates the corresponding risk. Using a simplified coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical (THM) model of the planned DeepStor demonstrator in the depleted Leopoldshafen oil field (Upper Rhine Graben, Germany), we show that reservoir heating is associated with stress changes of up to 6 MPa, which can cause vertical displacements at reservoir depth in the order of 10–3 m in the immediate vicinity of the hot injection well. Both the stress changes and the resulting displacements in the reservoir are dominated by thermoelasticity, which is responsible for up to 90% of the latter. Uplift at the surface, on the contrary, is primarily controlled by poroelasticity with by two orders of magnitude attenuated displacements of << 10–3 m. Our calculations further show that the reservoir depth, elastic modulus, and injection/production rates are the dominant controlling parameters for the uplift, showing variations of up to two order of magnitudes between shallower reservoirs with low elastic moduli and deeper and more competent reservoirs. In addition, our findings demonstrate that the cyclic operation of HT-ATES systems reduces the potential for uplift compared to the continuous injection and production of conventional geothermal doublets, hydrocarbon production, or CO2 storage. Consequently, at realistic production and injection rates and targeting reservoirs at depths of at least several hundred meters, the risk of ground surface movement associated with HT-ATES operations in depleted oil fields in, e.g., the Upper Rhine Graben is negligible.
KW - Coupled THM modeling
KW - HT-ATES
KW - Numerical modeling
KW - Risk assessment
KW - Seasonal energy storage
KW - Uplift
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85183852063&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s40517-024-00283-9
DO - 10.1186/s40517-024-00283-9
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85183852063
SN - 2195-9706
VL - 12
JO - Geothermal Energy
JF - Geothermal Energy
IS - 1
M1 - 4
ER -