Hydro-Thermal Modeling for Geothermal Energy Extraction from Soultz-sous-Forêts, France

Abstract

The deep geothermal energy project at Soultz-sous-Forêts is located in the Upper Rhine Graben, France. As part of the Multidisciplinary and multi-contact demonstration of EGS exploration and Exploitation Techniques and potentials (MEET) project, this study aimed to evaluate the possibility of extracting higher amounts of energy from the existing industrial infrastructure. To achieve this objective, the effect of reinjecting fluid at lower temperature than the current fluid injection temperature of 70 °C was modeled and the drop in the production wellhead temperature for 100 years of operation was quantified. Two injection-production rate scenarios were considered and compared for their effect on overall production wellhead temperature. For each scenario, reinjection temperatures of 40, 50, and 60 °C were chosen and compared with the 70 °C injection case. For the lower production rate scenario, the results show that the production wellhead temperature is approximately 1–1.5 °C higher than for the higher production rate scenario after 100 years of operation. In conclusion, no significant thermal breakthrough was observed with the applied flow rates and lowered injection temperatures even after 100 years of operation.