A Hybrid Geothermal Energy Conversion Technology - A Potential Solution For Production of Electricity From Shallow Geothermal Resources
A Hybrid Geothermal Energy Conversion Technology - A Potential Solution For Production of Electricity From Shallow Geothermal Resources
A Hybrid Geothermal Energy Conversion Technology - A Potential Solution For Production of Electricity From Shallow Geothermal Resources
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ScienceDirect
Energy Procedia 114 (2017) 7107 7117
Abstract
Geothermal energy has been successfully employed in Switzerland for more than a century for direct use but presently there is no
electricity being produced from geothermal sources. After the nuclear power plant catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, the Swiss
Federal Assembly decided to gradually phase out the Swiss nuclear energy program. Deep geothermal energy is a potential resource
for clean and nearly CO2-free electricity production that can supplant nuclear power in Switzerland and worldwide. Deep
geothermal resources often require enhancement of the permeability of hot-dry rock at significant depths (4-6 km), which can
induce seismicity. The geothermal power projects in the Cities of Basel and St. Gallen, Switzerland, were suspended due to
earthquakes that occurred during hydraulic stimulation and drilling, respectively. Here we present an alternative unconventional
geothermal energy utilization approach that uses shallower, lower-temperature, naturally permeable regions, that drastically reduce
drilling costs and induced seismicity. This approach uses geothermal heat to supplement a secondary energy source. Thus this
hybrid approach may enable utilization of geothermal energy in many regions in Switzerland and elsewhere, that otherwise could
not be used for geothermal electricity generation. In this work, we determine the net power output, energy conversion efficiencies,
and economics of these hybrid power plants, where the geothermal power plant is actually a CO 2-based plant. Parameters varied
include geothermal reservoir depth (2.5-4.5 km) and turbine inlet temperature (100-220C) after auxiliary heating. We find that
hybrid power plants
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +41- 44 632 08 13.
E-mail address: garapatn@ethz.ch
1876-6102 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of GHGT-13.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.1852
7108 Nagasree Garapati et al. / Energy Procedia 114 (2017) 7107 7117
outperform two individual, i.e., stand-alone geothermal and waste-heat power plants, where moderate geothermal energy is
available. Furthermore, such hybrid power plants are more economical than separate power plants.
2017The
2017 The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by Ltd.
by Elsevier Elsevier
This isLtd.
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of GHGT-13.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of GHGT-13.
Keywords: CO2 Plume Geothermal (CPG) energy; auxiliary heating; hybrid system; carbon capture utilization and sequestration (CCUS);
1. Introduction
In Switzerland geothermal energy has been successfully employed for direct use for more than a century but there
is no electricity production from geothermal resources. However, after the nuclear power plant catastrophe in
Fukushima, Japan, the Swiss Federal Assembly decided to gradually phase out, or at least reduce, its reliance on
nuclear energy, which plays a major role in both electricity production and district heating. Deep geothermal energy
is considered to be a potential resource for electricity production that can supplant nuclear power both in Switzerland
and worldwide. But, deep geothermal resources often require permeability enhancement of the hot-dry, and thus low-
permeability, rock at significant depths (4-6 km), which can induce seismicity. The geothermal power projects
undertaken in the Cities of Basel and St. Gallen, Switzerland, were suspended due to the earthquakes that occurred
during hydraulic stimulation and drilling, respectively. Alternatively, if a naturally permeable shallow geothermal
resource is combined with an additional, or secondary, energy source that is ideally renewable (like solar, biomass or
waste heat), but could also be non-renewable (like natural gas), the thermodynamic quality of the delivered energy
increases, thereby potentially enabling use of the combined energy sources for economically viable electricity
generation. Under certain conditions, such a hybrid power plant, consisting of a geothermal and a secondary plant with
the secondary plant heating the geothermally preheated working fluid upon production from the reservoir, can
outperform two individual, i.e., stand-alone, plants (one geothermal) and increase the overall energy conversion
efficiency of the combined system [1]. The cost for electricity production can also be reduced by operating a single
hybrid power plant, when compared to operating two individual plants [2].
Hybrid geothermal power plants can further be combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS), resulting in a
CO2-based geothermal systems [3] such as a CO2-Plume Geothermal (CPG) systems [4, 5]. Such CO2-based
geothermal systems employ CO2 as the subsurface geothermal working fluid which, in the hybrid system, becomes
the geothermally preheated fluid, further reducing CO2 emissions. Hence, in this work we model auxiliary heating of
CPG systems with waste heat to determine the physical (e.g., net power, thermal efficiencies) and economic (e.g.,
capital cost) performances and compare them with the individual, stand-alone power plants, i.e., one geothermal and
one waste-heat power plant.
A two-dimensional (2D) radial, axisymmetric, multiphase (water/brine and CO2) fluid and heat transfer reservoir
numerical model is employed in TOUGH2 [6] with ECO2N [7] EOS with the cold injection fluid entering the reservoir
centrally through a vertical injection well; the heated fluid is produced from a horizontal, circular 0.33m-diameter
production well placed just beneath the impermeable caprock, as described in detail in Garapati et al. [8]. The reservoir
parameters are listed in Table 1. As we consider injection of 10 Mt of CO 2 over 2.5 years prior to CO2 production,
the CO2 plume should, according to Garapati et al. [8], be sufficiently large, that at least 94% of the fluid produced
from the reservoir is CO2 during the production phase the remaining 6% being water/brine.
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The CO2 flow path through the reservoir, the wells, and the surface power plant are illustrated in Fig. 1. The cold
CO2 is injected at the surface at State 1, where it travels down the injection well to State 2, compressing adiabatically
to a supercritical fluid within the injection well. The supercritical CO 2 flows through the reservoir and heats up to the
reservoir temperature, reaching the bottom of the production well at State 3. The CO 2 then rises adiabatically [9]
through the production well to the surface at State 4. At the surface, the CO 2 is further heated isobarically in an
auxiliary heater by a waste heat recovery stream (100-220C) to State 5. The heated fluid is expanded through a turbine
for power production to State 6, where the pressure is set to 10 kPa above the saturation pressure of CO2 at 22C. The
fluid is then cooled and condensed isobarically to an approach temperature of 7C above the ambient air temperature
of 15C i.e., 22C, which is selected based on Adams et al. [10]. The cooled CO2 is either pumped or throttled from
State 10 to State 1. The surface power plant parameters are listed in Table 2. For a geothermal power plant alone, the
model remains the same except there is no heating from State 4 to 5. In this case the CO2 produced to the surface
(State 4) is directly expanded in the turbine for power production to State 6. In contrast, for the Secondary Power plant
alone, without geothermal preheating, the CO2 is pumped from State 8 to State 4 directly.
Fig. 1. Simplified process flow diagrams for a direct CO2 hybrid system (modified from Adams et al., 2015).
3. Analysis
Power output and efficiency are calculated for reservoir depths of 2.5 km, 3.5 km, and 4.5 km, where reservoir
temperature increases with depth according to a standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of 35oC/km, using a
waste-heat recovery stream at temperatures of 100C, 140C, 180C, and 220C for auxiliary heating of the
geothermally preheated CO2. For each configuration, the results are compared to a geothermal plant without auxiliary
heating and a secondary-source (here waste-heat) power plant without geothermal preheating.
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The first metric used to compare the operation of a hybrid plant is the Net Secondary Thermal Efficiency (NSTE),
defined as
PNet
K th,Sec , (1)
Qsec
which is the net power output of the hybrid plant, PNet, divided by the thermal input of the secondary energy source,
QSec, i.e., the amount of secondary heat energy added to heat the fluid to the specified turbine inlet temperature. This
value specifies the conversion efficiency of the hybrid plant. As the fraction of heat input into the hybrid plant from
geothermal sources approaches zero, the NSTE will approach the thermal efficiency of the secondary plant alone.
The second metric we use to evaluate the performance of the hybrid plant is the Incremental Net Secondary
Efficiency (INSTE). The INSTE is the difference between hybrid plant net power and the net power of the geothermal
plant alone divided by the thermal input from the secondary energy source. This is different from the NSTE in that it
accounts for the power that would have been produced by the geothermal plant alone if the hybrid plant were not used.
While the NSTE may be greater than the secondary-only plant efficiency, the net power may still be less than would
be produced by both the secondary-only and geothermal-only plants separately. Thus, if the value of the INSTE is
greater than the secondary-only NSTE, the hybrid system will produce more power than the secondary-only and the
geothermal-only plants combined. The Incremental Net Secondary Thermal Efficiency (INSTE) is defined by
where PNet,Geo is the net power output produced by a geothermal plant without secondary heating, operating on the
same reservoir.
A hybrid system may produce more power than a geothermal and a secondary-only system working
separately; however, the increase in capacity of the hybrid system must be greater than the increased capital costs for
the systems in order for the construction of the project to be justified. Thus, the capital cost ($/kW) of the hybrid
system must be considered.
The total capital cost of a hybrid plant is the sum of the equipment costs, well drilling costs, and development
costs. The financial model used in Bielicki et al. (in preparation) is used to determine the total capital costs of the
hybrid power plant and is compared with the costs of individual power plants. Surface pipeline costs are negligible
compared to plant, drilling, and development costs, and are thus not considered here. The capital costs are described
in detail next.
a) Equipment Costs:
The surface equipment costs are calculated based on brine geothermal power plant estimates from GETEM
Bielicki, J.M., et al., Engineering Cost-Competitive Geothermal Electricity from Geologic CO2 storage, in
preparation., 2016.
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(Geothermal Electricity Technology Evaluation Model) [12]. So in order to obtain costs for CO 2-based geothermal
systems, the costs are multiplied by three to account for high-pressure CO2 and it is assumed that only a single unit is
considered for all the equipment for hybrid and individual power plants.
c) Development Costs
A CO2-geothermal power plant is considered to be developed at a new site (i.e., a Greenfield) where there is no
initial CO2 storage. Therefore, the development costs involve site characterization and acquisition, injection and
production well permitting and construction, CO2 transport, injection monitoring, control equipment, site closure,
and long-term monitoring. The costs are calculated based on U.S. EPA [14] cost estimates for CO2-storage projects
and the values are listed in Table 4.
The net secondary thermal efficiency (Eq. 1) and incremental net secondary thermal efficiency (Eq. 2) of the hybrid
system with varying waste-heat recovery stream temperature and geothermally heated fluid from different reservoir
depths, resulting in increasing geothermal-fluid temperatures with increasing reservoir depth, are shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. (a) Net secondary thermal efficiency; (b) incremental net secondary thermal efficiency of the hybrid direct CO2 (red lines) power plant,
compared with the secondary power plant operated alone (solid green line) at geothermal reservoir depths of 2.5 km, 3.5 km, and 4.5 km. Reservoir
temperature increases with depth according to a standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of 35oC/km.
The secondary thermal efficiency (Fig. 2a), decreased with an increase in waste heat recovery stream temperature
and an increase in geothermal reservoir depth, and in proportion to the geothermal energy fraction. At shallow depth
(2.5 km) and high turbine inlet temperatures (>150C), the secondary efficiency of the hybrid power plant is lower
than the secondary power plant alone. In these rare cases, where the NSTE is lower than the secondary plant alone,
the turbine exit temperature at State 6 is higher than the temperature at State 4, resulting in a net heat flow into the
reservoir. Thus, the system would not be operated under these conditions.
In Fig. 3, we compare the total net power produced by hybrid geothermal power plants with the sum of the power
produced by the individual power plants, operating alone using the Incremental Net Secondary Thermal Efficiency
(INSTE). When the INSTE of a given hybrid system is greater than that of the secondary power plant alone, more net
power is generated through the combination of the geothermal and secondary systems than if the systems were
operated separately. At relatively shallow reservoir depths (2.5 km, 3.5 km) and high waste heat recovery stream
temperatures (>100C and >180C, respectively) the sum of the power produced from individual power plants is
higher than the power produced from the hybrid power plant. Therefore, at low-temperature secondary energy
resources, the direct CO2 hybrid power plant can produce more net power than the sum of the power produced by
individual power plants.
The incremental thermal efficiency (Fig. 2b) is often higher than the secondary-only power plant thermal
efficiency; however, at shallow depths and high waste-heat temperatures, the hybrid system has a lower thermal
7114 Nagasree Garapati et al. / Energy Procedia 114 (2017) 7107 7117
efficiency than a secondary plant alone, so that the hybrid plant should not be operated. In a secondary-only power
plant, the high-side working fluid pressure can be selected to maximize the system output power. However, for the
direct CO2 systems we utilize here, the pressure and density of the fluid entering into the turbine is determined by the
system operating conditions. Thus, the hybrid plant is constrained by the reservoir conditions and is better-suited to
produce power at lower waste-heat recovery stream temperatures.
Fig. 3.Total electric power produced by the hybrid power plant and the stand-alone power plants for different waste heat recovery temperatures and
geothermal reservoirs, located at depths of (a) 2.5 km, (b) 3.5 km, and (c) 4.5 km. Reservoir temperature increases with depth according to a
standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of 35oC/km.
Total capital costs (well drilling cost + development cost + surface power plant cost) in Fig. 4 and the capital cost
per power generating capacity ($/kW) in Fig. 5 of the hybrid system are compared with individual power plants. At
deeper depths (3.5 km and 4.5 km) the total capital costs and cost per unit electricity for hybrid power plants is lower
than the sum of the costs of the individual power plants. However, at shallow depth (2.5 km) and with high-grade
Nagasree Garapati et al. / Energy Procedia 114 (2017) 7107 7117 7115
secondary resource temperatures (180C and 220C) the capital cost per unit electricity for hybrid power plants is
higher than the sum of the costs of the individual power plants. Therefore, direct CO2 hybrid power plants can be both
efficient and economic when a low-grade secondary heat resource is used for auxiliary heating of the geothermally
preheated fluid. At deeper depths (3.5 km, 4.5 km) and low-grade secondary resource temperatures (100C, and
140C, respectively), though the secondary power plant alone has lower capital costs than the geothermal power plant,
the power generating capacity of the secondary power plant is also lower than that of the geothermal plant and, hence,
the cost per electricity generated for the secondary plant is higher than that of the geothermal plant.
Figure 4 Capital costs for the hybrid power plant and stand-alone power plants (Geo=Geothermal, Sec=Secondary) for different waste heat recovery
temperatures and geothermal reservoirs, located at depths of (a) 2.5 km, (b) 3.5 km, and (c) 4.5 km. Reservoir temperature increases with depth
according to a standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of 35oC/km.
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Fig. 5. Total capital cost per unit of electricity produced for the hybrid power plant, for separate, stand-alone power plants, and for the sum of stand-
alone (individual) power plants for different waste-heat recovery temperatures and geothermal reservoirs, located at depths of (a) 2.5 km, (b) 3.5
km, and (c) 4.5 km. Reservoir temperature increases with depth according to a standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of 35oC/km.
5. Conclusions
We studied the thermodynamic and energy conversion performance as well as the capital costs of hybrid CO 2-
plume geothermal power plants, i.e., power plants, where geothermally preheated CO2 is auxiliary heated by a
secondary (waste-heat) energy source. The results are compared to operating separate, stand-alone plants that use the
same geothermal and secondary energy resources. Combining the equipment into a hybrid power plant results in both
favorable thermodynamic performance and lower capital costs per unit electricity produced, compared to producing
the power individually in secondary-only and geothermal-only power plants for all waste heat temperatures studied at
geothermal reservoir depths of 2.5 km, 3.5 km, and 4.5 km and a standard continental-crust geothermal gradient of
35C/km. This study focused on the performance analysis of direct CO2-Plume Geothermal (CPG) power plants
presented in Adams et al. (2015). Additional research may further improve power plant design to optimize the
Nagasree Garapati et al. / Energy Procedia 114 (2017) 7107 7117 7117
performance and economics of the hybrid system, for example for high-grade secondary heat resources that are
combined with higher-temperature geothermal energy resources. The study here focused on low-grade geothermal
resources as those are more common worldwide and, in particular, in Switzerland.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by a Sustainable Energy Pathways (SEP) grant from the U.S. National Science
Foundation (NSF) under Grant Number SEP-1230691. Martin Saar additionally thanks the Werner Siemens
Foundation for their endowment of the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids Chair at ETH-Zurich (ETHZ). Any
opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, ETHZ, or the Werner Siemens Foundation.
Disclaimer
Drs. Randolph and Saar have significant financial and business interests in TerraCOH Inc., a company that may
commercially benefit from the results of this research. The University of Minnesota has the right to receive royalty
income under the terms of a license agreement with TerraCOH Inc. These relationships have been reviewed and
managed by the University of Minnesota in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.
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