Volume 46: Energy Transitions toward Carbon Neutrality: Part IX

Flexible operation strategy for geothermal power generation adapted to the uncertainty of demand response Jingxuan Xie, Jiansheng Wang

Abstract

Flexible operation of enhanced geothermal system (EGS) can not only address the peak modulation of geothermal power generation, but also actually improve the utilization of geothermal resource. Thus, an inversion investigation is presented to explore the effect of the flexible operation of EGS on reservoir lifespan using a pinnate horizontal well in present work. A nested iterative program is developed to fit the relationship between the generation capacity and operation time first, and injection flow rate second, by incorporating the non-linear least squares and Levenberg-Marquardt method. Particle swarm optimization (PSO) with self- adaptive inertia weight algorithm is employed to inverse the flexible operation strategy according to the surrogate model and the data of power consumption in demand side. The result indicates that the generation capacity and production temperature of EGS with pinnate horizontal well are strongly associated only with the injection mass flow rate. According to the power consumption in demand side, the geothermal power plant proposed should be launched at spring or autumn to avoid the geothermally seismic activity that caused by the larger injection flow rate. The flexible operation strategy of EGS with pinnate horizontal well should be implemented 11.25 days earlier than expected. Compared with the optimum operation strategy, the application of flexible operation strategy delays the thermal breakthrough time by 1.28 years, but causes a higher pump consumption.

Keywords Geothermal power generation, Flexible operation strategy, Inversion analysis, Enhanced geothermal system