Techniques for Improving the Enthalpy History Match and Reservoir Characterization in the Hengill Geothermal System

The Hengill geothermal system is located in southwest Iceland and has been producing electricity and hot water for several decades from two main fields: Hellisheiði and Nesjavellir. These fields show different fluid characteristics, which can be classified as low, medium, and high enthalpy. The curr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Maria Fernanda González Garcés 1989-
Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1946/41602
Description
Summary:The Hengill geothermal system is located in southwest Iceland and has been producing electricity and hot water for several decades from two main fields: Hellisheiði and Nesjavellir. These fields show different fluid characteristics, which can be classified as low, medium, and high enthalpy. The current reservoir simulation model includes the production wellbores as sink elements, in most cases unable to represent the boiling processes in high-enthalpy wells possibly because of additional under-represented pressure drawdowns inside the reservoir, leading to the mismatch of the modeled enthalpies. In this thesis the main geothermal system characteristics are explored, adding two new methods: a) using surface lineaments to study permeability; b) resistivity well logs to understand the permeability signals and magnitude at depth. A new numerical workflow is developed to improve enthalpy history match, based on simple and computationally inexpensive local refinements to the grid, both in sector and full-scale setups. These experiments generate different enthalpy time series and are compared to the actual field measurements in quantitative ways, with promising results. Alongside the calculations, the detection of important uncertainties is noted. Jarðhitinn í Hengilssvæðinu hefur verið notað til að framleiða rafmagn og heitt vatn í nokkra áratugi. Framleiðslan fer fram á tveimur meginsvæðum: Hellisheiði og Nesjavöllum. Borholur á svæðunum eru flokkaðar í þrjá flokka eftir eiginleikum, í holur með lágt vermi, meðalvermi og hátt vermi. Í núverandi forðalíkani af Hengilssvæðinu eru vinnsluholurnar hermdar sem massasvelgir og ekki er gert ráð fyrir holunni sem slíkri. Þetta getur valdið því að hermt vermi er lægra. Þetta verkefni gengur útá að kanna helstu eiginleika jarðhitakerfisins með tveimur nýjum aðferðum: a) sprungur og brot á yfirborði eru tengdar við lekt; b) viðnámsmælingar úr borholum eru brúaðar til að skilja lektmerki og stærð lekta á dýpt. Ný aðferð, sem byggir á einföldum og reikningslega ódýrum lausnum, ...