Overview
FrançaisABSTRACT
Geothermal installations which involve drilling through aquifers are used for heating or cooling surface facilities or industrial processes. Ground water pumped from the aquifer goes through surface heat exchangers. It is reinjected at a different temperature within the aquifer through recharging wells. In the paper are presented methods for studying hydraulic and thermal water injection clouds within the aquifer, around injection wells In order to maintain stable performances of surface thermodynamic machines, the thermal water reinjection cloud should not cross the drainage area of the production wells .
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Read the articleAUTHOR
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Philippe BERLANDIER: Graduate engineer in hydraulics and underground hydraulics - Director of Études et mesures Berlandier SARL RGE certified by OPQIBI for geothermal – since 2016
INTRODUCTION
Geothermal drilling on aquifers consists in feeding heat exchangers with water from the aquifer to produce heat or cold on the surface using thermodynamic machines (heat pumps, refrigeration pumps).
Such a thermodynamic machine can only function correctly in the Carnot cycle if the two external heat sources (hot and cold) remain at an almost constant temperature over the long term.
Geothermal regulations for open heat exchangers supplied with aquifer water by producer wells require that all geothermal water produced must be reinjected into the same aquifer via injector wells .
The geothermal water is reinjected into the aquifer at a different temperature (around 5 to 7°C higher or lower, depending on whether the thermodynamic machines are producing cold or heat).
The risk involved in operating geothermal well doublets (producer-injector) would therefore be that reinjection water of different temperatures would eventually migrate to the drainage zone of the producer wells. This would seriously impair the thermodynamic performance of the machines and eventually lead to plant shutdown ( , p. 8 and 56).
The complex models used to calculate the evolution over time of hydraulic or thermal drainage zones (also known as plumes or clouds) in the aquifer of producing or injecting wells are described in the literature ( . The essential results that can be obtained using these methods are presented in reference ,...
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KEYWORDS
aquifer | well drilling
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