Energy 109 (2016) 537e545

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Enhancing geothermal power generation from abandoned oil wells

with thermal reservoirs
Wen-Long Cheng*, Jian Liu, Yong-Le Nian, Chang-Long Wang
Department of Thermal Science and Energy Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230027, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Using abandoned oil wells for geothermal power generation can relieve energy problem, save drilling
Received 6 January 2016 cost, and govern the pollution caused by the residual oil of the abandoned oil wells. In this paper, a novel
Received in revised form method for enhancing the geothermal utilization efficiency by developing thermal reservoirs is pre-
14 March 2016
sented. A 2-D thermal reservoirs coupling with 1-D wellbore heat transfer model was set up to simulate
Accepted 3 May 2016
geothermal energy production, and the effects of the thermal reservoirs on the geothermal production
and electric power output were analyzed. The study results showed that the geothermal well with
thermal reservoirs could produce about 4 times the heat and electric power output as that without
Keywords:
Geothermal power generation
thermal reservoirs. Moreover, the thermal reservoirs parameters would impact the heat production and
Abandoned oil wells power generation significantly. Especially, the heat production and electric power output increased with
Thermal reservoirs the thermal reservoirs depth and the fluid injection rate, however increased with the thermal reservoirs
Heat transfer model length firstly, and then decreased, which indicated that there was a maximal heat production and power
Organic Rankine cycle generation at an optimal reservoir length. Simultaneously, the fluid loss in the thermal reservoirs
increased with the thermal reservoirs depth and length as well as thermal reservoirs porosity.
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
At present, the fossil energy has been dominating the energy
structure of the world, causing many environmental problems.
Simultaneously, as the depletion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil,
natural gas, the energy problems are becoming more and more
serious [1]. Therefore, developing new renewable and green energy
tends to be imperative. Comparing with the conventional fossil
energy, the advantages of the geothermal energy are large reserves,
no pollutant discharge and renewable. Comparing with other
renewable energy sources (ex. wind power, solar energy and so on),
the advantages of the geothermal energy are stable properties and
small covering area. Therefore, geothermal energy as a renewable
energy source has extensive application prospect in the field of
energy [2,3].
The hot dry rock with abundant geothermal energy was applied
for power generation originally. Li et al. [4] mainly introduced the
research process, and investigated the thermal energy which was
used for power generation from the high temperature artificial
hydraulic fracturing rock mass underground 3e10 km. Tomasz
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ86 551 63600305.
E-mail address: wlcheng515@163.com (W.-L. Cheng).
Kujawa et al. [5] presented a single well geothermal power gener-
ation system using water as working substance, and established a
thermal transfer model between concentric tube heat exchanger
and the stratum. However, the development of hot dry rock power
generation seems to be limited by the expensive drilling cost.
On the other hand, it is estimated that there are about 20e30
million abandoned oil wells around the world, and the leak of the
residue oil lead to serious pollution. Therefore, some researchers
presented a kind of geothermal power generation method by uti-
lizing the abandoned oil wells, which not only could save drilling
cost but also could control the pollution [5e9]. Cheng et al. [9e11]
established a single wellbore heat transfer model for an abandoned
oil well with a depth of 6000 m using isobutene as working sub-
stance. The result showed that the outlet temperature of fluid
gradually decreased with the system operating time and ultimately
approached stability. And increasing the inlet injection rate could
increase the total heat production but would lower the outlet
temperature of the fluid. Bu et al. [6,12] also established a thermal
transfer model between the well and the stratum, it concluded that
the fluid flow rate and geothermal gradient were two main effect
factors on the geothermal power generation. However, the above
studies on geothermal power generation just investigated the
wellbore heat transfer and the geothermal energy which was
produced only from formation. In addition, due to the limited

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2016.05.009
0360-5442/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
538 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545
Nomenclature
Variables
Ac cross sectional area, m2
a thermal transfer area, m2
C wetted perimeter, m
Cp specific heat at constant pressure, J kg1 K1
Dh hydraulic diameter, m
g gravity, m s2
h convective thermal transfer coefficient, W m2 K1
hi specific enthalpy,J kg1(i ¼ 1,2,3,4)
k permeability, Darcy
M mass flow rate, kg s1
Nu nusselt number
P pressure, Pa
PAct actual generated power, W
Pnet net power, W
Ppump pump power, W
Q thermal power, W
t time, s
T temperature, K
T0 the land surface temperature, K
DT the geothermal gradient, K m1
contact area between wellbore and stratum, the heat transfer be-
tween the working fluid and stratum is inadequate. On the other
hand, with the increase of heat transfer radius, the temperature
gradient in radial direction will be smaller and smaller. Therefore,
the efficiency of geothermal power generation is lower actually.
Moreover, the studies on the effects of thermal reservoirs on
abandoned oil wells geothermal power generation are missing.
According to the research in the French Soultz field test site, an
effective thermal reservoirs is of a complex network composed of
many interconnected fractures. On this basis, some researchers
studied the coupling problems for reservoirs heat transfer simu-
lation, Taron et al. [13] built numerical model of the thermal res-
ervoirs with the THMC (Thermal, Hydraulic, Mechanical and
Chemical) by coupling flow and the other processes. Pandey et al.
[14] analyzed the THMC using the software of FEHM (finite element
heat and mass transfer), and mentioned that the alteration of
aperture and evolution of overall permeability were directly
controlled by the injection conditions such as mass flow rate, in-
jection temperature and concentrations. However, the calculation
time of these coupling numerical models was very long [15], and it
brought very heavy burden to the computer.
In order to solve the above problems, this paper focused on the
effects of thermal reservoirs and working fluid loss on geothermal
power generation using abandoned oil wells. Therefore, an
enhanced geothermal power generation system was presented by
introducing thermal reservoirs. Comparing with the conventional
geothermal power generation system, the presented system could
expand heat extraction area effectively and increase the radial
temperature gradient largely. On another hand, this paper analyzed
the effects of some reservoir parameters on heat production and
power generation by using a simplified simulation thermal reser-
voirs model [16e19]. The research results showed that the calcu-
lation time of the simplified model was greatly shortened and the
simulation results agreed well with the experimental data. More-
over, because in the process of fluid flow in the rock fractures, a
certain amount of fluid would permeate to the surrounding rock
u velocity,m s1
z the distance from the thermal reservoirs to the land
surface, m
Greek letters
r density, kg m3
ε porosity
l thermal conductivity, W m1 K1
m dynamic viscosity, N s m2
hco comprehensive efficiency of power generation
hg generator efficiency
hm mechanical efficiency of steam turbine
hpump pump efficiency
hri relative internal efficiency of steam turbine
Subscript
Act actual
co comprehensive
g generator
L liquid
m mechanical
ri relative internal
S solid
causing to working fluid loss which not only decreased the
geothermal heat production, but also wasted the working fluid.
However, the investigation of working fluid loss was neglected in
the present studies. Therefore, this paper also considered the effect
of working fluid loss in thermal reservoirs on the geothermal power
generation system.
2. Basic principle
In the study of using abandoned oil wells for geothermal power
generation, single well system is the main object. The cyclic
working substance extracts geothermal energy from the stratum in
the single well concentric tube heat exchanger. Concentric tube
heat exchanger is composed of inner tube and outer tube. The inner
tube is wrapped with a layer of thermal-protective coating and the
outer pipe contacts closely with the formation. The working fluid
downward flow to the thermal reservoirs and extract abundant
geothermal energy after being injected into the outer tube relying
on the heat conduction between formation and outer pipe and the
heat convection between outer pipe and working fluid. Then the
working fluid flows back to the wellhead through inner tube after
flowing downward to the bottom of the abandoned oil well.
Because the bottom of the inner pipe do not connect completely
with the bottom of the abandoned oil well, therefore, the working
fluid can flow into the inner tube smoothly. The heat loss in the
inner tube is reduced due to the existence of the thermal-protective
coating. Therefore, the outlet temperature is quite high. Finally the
fluid that flows from the inner tube is injected in the outer tube
again after transferring heat to the organic working fluid in the
evaporator.
Studies showed that the thermal reservoirs are generally
structured of modern volcanic intrusive granite and granodiorite of
igneous rock. However, there is no thermal reservoirs exist in
natural conditions. Therefore, it is need to use hydraulic fracturing
method to form small coherent rock fractures which can be used as
the thermal reservoirs and the main fluid heat exchange zone.
 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545 539

Fig. 1 showed the main process of geothermal power generation.
The cryogenic fluid of water flows into the thermal reservoirs
through outer tube. The temperature and pressure of the fluid in-
crease in the thermal reservoirs while absorbing heat. Then the
fluid which flows from the inner tube exchange heat with organic
working substance in the evaporator, and next the cooled fluid re-
enter the thermal reservoirs through the outer tube. Simulta-
neously, the saturated organic working substance steam drives
steam turbine to generate electricity and then back to the evapo-
rator for exchanging heat.
3. The thermal transfer model and the verification
Therefore, it was feasible to evaluate the convective heat transfer of
the thermal reservoirs by using the heat transfer of single fracture.
Based on this property, Fig. 2 showed the structure diagram of the
2-D fracture heat transfer model.
According to the researches, the assumptions are as follows:
(1) Constant temperature of the surrounding rocks.
The fracture volume is much smaller than the surrounding rock
volume due to the thermal reservoirs fracture is millimeter level,
therefore, the temperature change of the surrounding rock can be
neglected and the temperature distribution also can be considered
as constant.

3.1. The thermal reservoirs heat transfer model

(2) Neglected the heat transfer in Z direction of the fluid in
thermal reservoirs fracture.
Generally, the simplified models can be classified into inerratic
fracture network model, random fracture network model and
This paper just considered the convective heat transfer between
porous media model, etc. The inerratic fracture network model
fluid and surrounding rocks in Z direction and neglected the heat
includes single fissure model and parallel fracture group model, etc.
transfer inside the fluid in Z direction due to the fracture scale in Z
Hicks et al. [16] presented a 2-D heat transfer model for numerical
direction was much smaller than X direction and Y direction.
simulating by coupling flow-thermal-mechanical model and iner-
ratic fracture network model (fracture is divided into vertical and
horizontal). Xu et al. [20] presented a simplified inerratic fracture
model to investigate the thermal reservoirs, and simplified the
complex flow-heat transfer in the thermal reservoirs adopting heat
exchange equations and Newton's law of cooling. The random
fracture network model [21] determined the average characteris-
tics of the thermal reservoirs using the Monte Carlo method.
Therefore, the fracture network in thermal reservoirs was
perceived as equivalent in statistically. However, this model Surrounding rocks
brought a heavy burden to the calculation because of too many free TS
variables. The porous media model was widely applied in the
thermal reservoirs investigation because of its simple process, and Recovery
Injection
it was classified into single porosity model, double porosity model
and multi-scale porosity model [22e24].
Fracture
This paper concretely analyzed the heat transfer process of a Z
Surrounding rocks
single fracture in the thermal reservoirs by adopting the simplified
Y TS
inerratic fracture network model. According to the multi-cell sys-
tem model that A.J. Jupe et al. [19] presented, it was composed of
O X
vast parallel and independent thermal reservoirs units which had
the similar flow characteristics and thermal transfer characteristics. Fig. 2. Structure diagram of two-dimensional fracture heat transfer model.

Recovery Well

Injection Well 1
A
Turbine Generator
Evaporator
2 Cooling
Stratum Stratum B Condenser Water

3
Pump
Thermal 4
protective
coating
Thermal reservoirs

Stratum

Fig. 1. Structure diagram of geothermal power system cycle.

540 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545
(3) Only considered the heat conduction process inside the fluid
in X direction and Y direction.
(4) The fluid was single-phase and laminar flow in the whole
heat transfer process.
(5) Neglected the deformation and chemical reaction in the
thermal reservoirs.
(6) Neglected the influence of radiation heat transfer.
Based on the assumptions above, this paper simulated the heat
exchange process between the rock and fluid in the thermal res-
ervoirs according to the mass equation, momentum equation and
energy equation. More specifically, this paper used the method of
finite difference for dispersing these control equations, and solved
the discrete equations using iterative solution method. The control
equations of the model are as follows.
Mass conservation equation:
ðεrÞ
þ VðruÞ ¼ 0
vt
where ε is the porosity of thermal reservoirs, r is the density of the
fluid, kg m3, u is the velocity of the fluid, m s1.
Momentum conservation equation:
ðruÞ r m
þ u,Vu ¼ VP þ V,mVu  u þ εrg
vt ε k wall and the fluid. On the internal side of the downward pipe, the
where P is the pressure of the fluid in thermal reservoirs, Pa, m is the
dynamic viscosity of the fluid, N s m2, k is the permeability of the
thermal reservoirs, Darcy, g is the acceleration of gravity, m s2.
Energy conservation equation:
ðεrCPL TL Þ
þ V,½ðrCPL TL Þu ¼ haðTS  TL Þ
vt
where CPL is the specific heat at constant pressure of the fluid,
J kg1 K1, TL is the temperature of the fluid, K, a is the heat ex-
change area, m2, TS is temperature of the rocks in thermal reser-
voirs, K, which can be acquired as the following equation:
TS ¼ T0 þ z,DT
where T0 is the land surface temperature, K, z is the distance from
the thermal reservoirs to the land surface, m, DT is the geothermal
gradient, K m1.
And h is the convective thermal transfer coefficient, W m2 K1,
which can be acquired as the following equation:
Nu,l
h¼
Dh
where Nu is the nusselt number, and its value is selected as 7.54
because the length-width ratio of the cross section of the rock
fractures in thermal reservoirs tends to be infinite, l is the thermal
conductivity of the fluid in thermal reservoirs, W m1 K1, Dh is the
hydraulic diameter of the rock fractures in thermal reservoirs, m,
which can be acquired as the following equation:
4Ac
Dh ¼
C
where Ac is the cross sectional area of the rock fractures, m2, C is the
wetted perimeter of the rock fractures, m.
3.2. Wellbore heat transfer model
The main content of the wellbore heat transfer model [9] is the
concentric tube heat exchanger as shown in Fig. 1. The annular
channel between inner tube and outer tube is called the injection
well and the inner tube is called the recovery well. The working
substance obtained geothermal energy continuously after being
injected into the abandoned oil wells while flowing down to the
thermal reservoirs. The pressure of the working substance
increased gradually because of the gravity. Then it reverse flowed
up to the ground surface after extracting energy sufficiently inside
the thermal reservoirs. Particularly, the outside wall of the inner
tube was wrapped the thermal-protective coating for avoiding the
geothermal energy loss which transferred from the recovery well to
the injection well [11]. The inner tube included two thin concentric
pipes, and it was filled with thermal insulation material in the ring
channel between the two thin concentric pipes. Therefore, these
thermal insulation material and the two thin concentric pipes
(1) constituted the inner tube or the inner tube could be regarded as an
insulated tubular in somehow. Therefore, it could avoid the heat
losing from the hot fluid in the inner tube to the cool fluid in the
outer tube exactly because of the existence of the thermal-
protective coating.
In the downward pipe, it was assumed that the heat transfer
from the surrounding rocks to the borehole wall was by conduction
(2) while the heat transfer was by convection between the borehole
fluid was in contact with the internal tube. The heat transfer be-
tween the two pipes was mainly by conduction through the pipe
and by convection between the wall and the fluid.
At the well bottom, the heated fluid entered in the internal pipe,
going up to the wellhead. The heat transfer was only through the
wall of the pipe. The total heat flux was formed by a conductive
component through the composite pipe itself and by two convec-
(3)
tive components, one on the internal wall and the other on the
external wall of the wellbore heat exchanger.
3.3. The verification of the heat transfer model
A 2-D thermal reservoirs coupling with 1-D wellbore heat
transfer model was built for investigating the geothermal power
(4) generation in this paper. The reliability of the model was verified
by the experimental data of the Fenton Ⅱ, the Soultz Ⅱ, the Soultz
Ⅲ, the Los AlamosⅠand the Japan [25e27]. The input parameters
were presented in Table 1. Moreover, the initial conditions and
boundary conditions of the simulation agreed with the experi-
mental conditions. The verified results in Table 2 showed that the
simulation results agreed well with the experimental results. The
temperature, flux and heat production of simulation results were
close to the experimental results. In spite of that there indeed were
(5) small differences between the simulated and measured outlet
temperature in Soultz II and Soultz III cases. However, it also could
be find that the measured experimental data of outlet flux and
thermal power were within a certain range. It was clear that the
Table 1
The input parameters.
Parameter Fenton Ⅱ Soultz Ⅱ Soultz Ⅲ Los Japan
Alamos Ⅰ
Depth (m) 3500 3000 4500 3000 2200
(6) Rock temperature ( C) 240 168 200 200 270
Length of fractures (m) 300 450 660 300 130
Inlet flux (L s1) 8.38 28.3 97.4 6.84 15.98
Inlet pressure (MPa) 26.9 15 30 27 15
 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545 541

Table 2
The contrast of the numerical simulation data and the field test data.

Experiment project name Outlet Outlet flux (L$s1) Fluid loss (%) Thermal power Outlet pressure
temperature ( C) (MW) (MPa)

ER SR ER SR ER SR ER SR ER SR

Fenton Ⅱ 183 182.9 7 7.93 16 5.4 5 5.08 3.3 5.2

Soultz Ⅱ 135 146 26 25.7 e 9.2 10e11 12.5 e 7.2
Soultz Ⅲ 135 161.4 60e100 81.2 e 16.6 50e60 55.61 e 7.3
Los Alamos Ⅰ 184 189.3 5.66 5.86 16 14.3 4.2 4.7 10 10.6
Japan 165 165.5 12 13.88 25 13 7 6.9 e 11.9

ER: experimental results.

SR: simulation results.

measured outlet temperature are the average outlet temperature. The output net generated power could be expressed as follows
Moreover, the simulated experimental data of outlet flux and [31]:
thermal power were within the range of the measured experi- h . i
mental data. Therefore, the simulation results were within the Pnet ¼ PAct  Ppump ¼ M ðh1  h2 Þhri hm hg  ðh4  h3 Þ hpump
acceptable range synthetically considering the natural field
experiment error and the personal error in data acquisition. (8)
Therefore, the heat transfer model was reliable and rational ac-
where Pnet is the net power, W, Ppump is the pump power, W, h3 is
cording to the verified results.
the specific enthalpy of the working substance in state 3 (after
The recent studies showed that the general power generation
being cooled), J kg1, h4 is the specific enthalpy of the working
method in geothermal utilization was using double working sub-
substance in state 4 (after being isentropic pressurized), J kg1,
stances. This paper adopted double working substances power
hpump is the pump efficiency.
generation method considering the environmental protection. The
The comprehensive efficiency of using abandoned oil wells for
water was selected as working substance to extract energy in the
geothermal power generation could be expressed as follows [33]:
thermal reservoirs considering the complexity and uncertainty of
the thermal reservoirs. The organic working substance R134a was Pnet
selected as working substance to power generation for protecting hco ¼ (9)
Q
the power generation device from damaging by the fluid from the
production well as well as improving the power generation effi- where hco is the power generation comprehensive efficiency, Q is
ciency and the sustainability. the thermal power, W.

4. Organic Rankine cycle

5. Results and analysis

The process of organic Rankine cycle was shown in Fig. 3.

The actual generated power based on organic Rankine cycle
[6,28e31] could be expressed as follows [32]:
PAct ¼ Mðh1  h2 Þhri hm hg
where PAct is the actual generated power, W, M is the mass flow rate,
kg s1, h1 is the specific enthalpy of the working substance in state 1
(getting into the steam turbine with super-critical state), J kg1, h2 is
the specific enthalpy of the working substance in state 2 (leaving
the steam turbine), J kg1, hri is the relative internal efficiency of
steam turbine, hm is the mechanical efficiency of steam turbine, hg
is the generator efficiency.
T
1
5.1. Heat transfer characteristics analysis in the thermal reservoirs
The assumptions in this paper were that the pressure in frac-
(7) tures was linear distribution, porosity ε and permeability K were
constant. The Equation (1), Equation (2) and Equation (3) were
solved by using the method of difference divergence in the condi-
tions as shown in Table 3.
The simulation of convection heat transfer between fluid and
granite rock fracture in the thermal reservoirs was developed
selecting water as working substance. The temperature, density,
velocity, and flux distribution of the fluid in steady-state conditions
were as shown in Figs. 4e7 respectively.
The results showed that the temperature and the flow velocity
of the fluid increased because of the heat which was extracted from
the surrounding rocks, conversely, the density and the outlet mass
Table 3
The initial parameters.

Parameter Value [9,10,20]

4’ Inlet temperature ( C) 20
Inlet velocity (m s1) 0.2
4 Density (kg m3) 1000
Inlet pressure (MPa) 27

3 2 2’ Outlet pressure (MPa) 10

Rock temperature ( C) 300
The fracture section length (m) 0.1
The fracture section width (m) 0.001
0 s The fracture length (m) 300
Permeability 0.0001816
Porosity factor 0.03
Fig. 3. Structure diagram of organic Rankine cycle temperature entropy.
542 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545

flow rate of the fluid decreased because of the influence of pene-

tration. Meanwhile, the water loss was 2.4% and the heat produc-
tion was 0.0185 MW in low mass flow rate. Then the simulation
results were analyzed synthetically, and the analysis results
showed that the thermal reservoirs could increase the heat pro-
duction greatly though in low mass flow rate. Therefore, using
abandoned oil wells with thermal reservoirs for power generation
was feasible.
Also, the analysis results of geothermal power generation sys-
tem with thermal reservoirs were compared with the results of a
similar system that Xu et al. [20] presented. They simulated the
heat extraction from the Geodynamics Habanero reservoir in the
Cooper Basin, South Australia. The depth of the well was 4421 m,
753 m into the basement rock (granite) and the temperature at the
bottom of the well was close to 250  C with reservoir pressure at
approximately 35 MPa. The temperature gradient in this section
was approximately 50  C km1. And the fluid injection temperature
was set to 95  C. Also the inlet mass flow rate was 35 kg s1. The
results they did showed that the maximum outlet temperature was
about 235  C and the maximum heat production power was about
20.5 MW. Similarly, the same thermal reservoirs system was also
simulated depending on the simulation model this paper pre-
sented. The average temperature of thermal reservoirs was set to
300  C. And the temperature gradient was set to 50  C km1 as well. Fig. 5. The density distribution of fluid in a single fracture.
While the fluid injection temperature and the inlet mass flow rate
were set to 20  C and 7.56 kg s1 respectively. The simulation re-
sults in Figs. 4e7 showed that the average outlet temperature was
about 243  C. Although the inlet mass flow rate was only
7.56 kg s1, the heat production power was about 4.65 MW. On the
other hand, the study results in this paper showed that the heat
production power increased with the inlet mass flow rate. There-
fore, the comparison results with an existing studies on similar
system showed that there were little differences between them,
Moreover, the simulation results in this paper were superior to the
results simulated by the model that Xu et al. presented. Therefore,
using the thermal reservoirs model that this paper presented for
geothermal power generation was feasible.

Fig. 6. The velocity distribution of fluid in a single fracture.

5.2. Heat production analysis

A 2-D thermal reservoirs coupling with 1-D wellbore heat

Fig. 4. The temperature distribution of fluid in a single fracture.
transfer model was presented in this paper, and the purpose of
presenting the model was studying the geothermal power gener-
ation by applying abandoned oil wells with thermal reservoirs.
Therefore, this paper analyzed and discussed the influence of
thermal reservoirs on heat production in different fracture condi-
tions and initial boundary conditions.
In the simulation, the water was selected as working substance
in the first stratum thermal cycle, and the R134a was selected as
working substance in the second electricity generation cycle [34].
 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545
Fig. 7. The flux distribution of fluid in a single fracture.
Then this paper analyzed the influence of various factors on the
heat production in the uniform conditions as shown in Table 4.
The change of heat production with thermal reservoirs depth in
different mass flow rates was analyzed and discussed firstly in the
conditions that the fracture length 300 m and the porosity of
thermal reservoirs 0.03. The results in Fig. 8 showed that the heat
production increased with the thermal reservoirs depth, and the
heat production with thermal reservoirs was higher than that
without thermal reservoirs.
Then the change of heat production with the injection fluid
velocity in different porosity was analyzed and discussed in the
conditions that the fracture length 300 m and the thermal reser-
voirs depth 6000 m. The results in Fig. 9 showed that the heat
production increased with the injection fluid velocity, and the heat
production with thermal reservoirs was much higher than that
without thermal reservoirs especially with the injection velocity
increasing.
Then the change of heat production with the fracture length of
the thermal reservoirs in different porosity was analyzed and dis-
cussed in the conditions that the thermal reservoirs depth 6000 m
and the injection fluid velocity 0.2 m s1. The results in Fig. 10
showed that the heat production increased with the fracture
Table 4
The initial parameters.
Parameter
Working substance
The outside radius of the outer pipe (m)
The inside radius of the outer pipe (m)
The outside radius of the inner pipe (m)
The inside radius of the inner pipe (m)
The inlet pressure of the working substance (Mpa)
Land surface temperature ( C)
Condensing temperature ( C)
Geothermal gradient ( C m1)
Absolute roughness (m)
Permeability
Steam turbine relative internal efficiency
Mechanical efficiency of steam turbine
Generator efficiency
Efficiency of pump
543
Fig. 8. The change of heat production power with the thermal reservoirs depth.
length of the thermal reservoirs firstly, then decreased. As we knew
that the heat energy that the working fluid obtained from the
thermal reservoirs will increased with the length of thermal res-
ervoirs. The main reason was that the heat transfer time between
the working fluid and the thermal reservoirs increased with the
length of the thermal reservoirs. However, there was another factor
of the fluid loss that could influence the heat energy obtained from
the thermal reservoirs. The results in Fig. 11 showed that the fluid
loss increased with the porosity of thermal reservoirs as well.
Although the working fluid exchanged heat with the thermal res-
ervoirs more sufficient when the length of thermal reservoirs was
long, the fluid loss increased in the meantime. Therefore, the heat
energy obtained from the thermal reservoirs increased with the
fracture length of the thermal reservoirs firstly, then decreased, and
maximized in the fracture length of thermal reservoirs 300 m.
Similarly the heat production with thermal reservoirs was much
higher than that without thermal reservoirs.
Ultimately the change of heat production with the porosity in
different thermal reservoirs depth was analyzed and discussed in
the conditions that the fracture length 300 m and the injection fluid
Value [9,10,20]
water
0.14
0.125
0.06
0.03
10
15
25
0.05
0.00026
0.0001816
0.8
0.97
0.98
0.8
Fig. 9. The change of heat production power with the injection fluid velocity.
544 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545
Fig. 10. The change of heat production power with the fracture length.
velocity 0.2 m s1. The results in Fig. 12 showed that the heat
production decreased with the porosity, and the heat production
with thermal reservoirs was higher than that without thermal
reservoirs even in high porosity.
The results in Fig. 12 showed that the heat production decreased
with the porosity in the same mass flow rate. Generally thought
that the higher porosity of the thermal reservoirs, the greater heat
transfer area between the fluid and thermal reservoirs would be,
and the more heat production would be obtained from the thermal
reservoirs. However, Fig. 9 showed that the mass flow rate had a
great influence on the heat production. In addition, the fluid loss in
different porosity was analyzed and the results that the fluid loss
increased with the porosity as shown in Fig. 11. Although the heat
transfer area increased with the porosity of the thermal reservoirs,
the fluid loss increased as well. Therefore, the heat production
decreased with the porosity in the same mass flow rate because of
the influence of fluid loss in the thermal reservoirs.
5.3. Electricity generation analysis
After discussing the change of heat production with different
fracture conditions and initial boundary conditions, the change of
Fig. 11. The change of outlet mass flow rate with the porosity.
Fig. 12. The change of heat production power with the porosity.
electricity generation with different fracture conditions and initial
boundary conditions was discussed in the same conditions as
shown in Table 4, and then the simulation results of electricity
generation which corresponded with the heat production analysis
was obtained.
The results showed that the electricity generation increased
with the thermal reservoirs depth in different mass flow rates in
the conditions that the fracture length 300 m and the porosity of
thermal reservoirs 0.03, and it increased with the injection fluid
velocity in different porosity in the conditions that the fracture
length 300 m and the thermal reservoirs depth 6000 m, and it
increased with the thermal reservoirs fracture length in different
porosity firstly, and then decreased in the conditions that the
thermal reservoirs depth 6000 m and the injection fluid velocity
0.2 m s1, and it decreased with the porosity in different thermal
reservoirs depth in the conditions that the fracture length 300 m
and the injection fluid velocity 0.2 m s1.
Considering that the heat production decreasing with porosity
of the thermal reservoirs was in normal range while the mass flow
rate was constant. Therefore, the electricity generation decreasing
with porosity of the thermal reservoirs was also authentic.
The change of outlet mass flow rate with the porosity in
different thermal reservoirs depth was analyzed and discussed in
the conditions that the fracture length 300 m and the injection fluid
velocity 0.2 m s1. The results in Fig. 11 showed that the outlet mass
flow rate decreased with the thermal reservoirs porosity in
different thermal reservoirs depth, and decreased with the thermal
reservoirs depth in different thermal reservoirs porosity. Simulta-
neously, the change of outlet mass flow rate with the length of
thermal reservoirs was analyzed and discussed in the conditions
that the thermal reservoirs depth 6000 m and the injection fluid
velocity 0.2 m s1. The results in Fig. 13 showed that the outlet mass
flow rate decreased with the thermal reservoirs length. In other
words, the fluid loss in the thermal reservoirs increased with the
thermal reservoirs depth, length as well as thermal reservoirs
porosity.
6. Conclusions
This paper mainly studied the effects of thermal reservoirs on
geothermal power generation using abandoned oil wells, and a
novel heat transfer model coupling 2-D thermal reservoirs with 1-D
wellbore was built. Based on the built model, the heat production
 W.-L. Cheng et al. / Energy 109 (2016) 537e545
Fig. 13. The change of outlet mass flow rate with the thermal reservoirs length.
power and generation power were investigated in detail with
focusing on some important influence parameters, the conclusions
are as follows:
(1) The heat production and power generation increase with the
thermal reservoirs depth and fluid injection velocity in
different fluid injection rate and different porosity
respectively.
(2) The heat production and power generation increase first and
then decrease with the thermal reservoirs length. The results
also indicate a maximal heat production and power gener-
ation with an optimal thermal reservoirs length of 300 m.
(3) In the same mass flow rate, the heat production and power
generation decrease with the increase of thermal reservoirs
porosity as approximate linear trend in different thermal
reservoirs depth.
(4) Due to the influence of the thermal reservoirs permeability,
the fluid loss increase with thermal reservoirs depth and
length as well as thermal reservoirs porosity.
(5) The geothermal well with thermal reservoirs could enhance
the heat and electric power output observably as that
without thermal reservoirs in different thermal reservoirs
conditions.
(6) The thermal reservoirs can enhance the geothermal utiliza-
tion efficiency of the abandoned oil wells, and the compre-
hensive power generation efficiency is steady at about 13%.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (grant no. 51176182) for the financial support.
References
[1] Lior N. Energy resources and use: the present situation and possible paths to
the future. Energy 2008;33:842e57.
[2] Li CT. New energy and renewable energy technologies (Version 2)[M]. Nanjing
Southeast Univ Press; 2012. p. 63e8.
[3] Sayigh A. Renewable energy-the way forward. Appl Energy 1999;64:15e30.
[4] Li C, Wang SL, Zhang XM, Kang L. The application of the hot dry rock in
geothermal power generation. Therm Power Gener 2008;37:138e9.
545
[5] Kujawa T, Nowak W, Stachel AA. Utilization of existing deep geological wells
for acquisitions of geothermal energy. Energy 2006;31:650e64.
[6] Bu XB, Ma WB, Li H. Geothermal energy production utilizing abandoned oil
and gas wells. Renew Energy 2012;41:80e5.
[7] Davis AP, Michaelides EE. Geothermal power production from abandoned oil
wells. Energy 2009;34:866e72.
[8] Ebrahimi M, Torshizi SEM. Optimization of power generation from a set of
low-temperature abandoned gas wells, using organic Rankine cycle. J Renew
Sustain Energy 2012;4:063e133.
[9] Cheng WL, Li TT, Nian YL, Wang CL. Studies on geothermal power generation
using abandoned oil wells. Energy 2013;59:248e54.
[10] Cheng WL, Li TT, Nian YL, Xie K. Evaluation of working fluids for geothermal
power generation from abandoned oil wells. Appl Energy 2014;118:
238e45.
[11] Cheng WL, Huang YH, Lu DT, Yin HR. A novel analytical transient heat-
conduction time function for thermal transfer in steam injection wells
considering the wellbore heat capacity. Energy 2011;36:4080e8.
[12] Bu XB, Ma WB, Huang YF. Using waste oil and gas wells for obtaining
geothermal energy. J Eng Therm Energy Power 2011;5:621e5.
[13] Taron J, Elsworth D, Min KB. Numerical simulation of thermal-hydrologic-
mechanical- chemical processes in deformable, fractured porous media. Int.
J Rock Mech Min 2009;46:842e54.
[14] Pandey SN, Chaudhuri A, Kelkar S, Sandeep VR, Rajaram H. Investigation of
permeability alteration of fractured limestone reservoir due to geothermal
heat extraction using three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic-chemical (THC)
model. Geothermics 2014;51:46e62.
[15] Guo J, Chen JL, Cao WJ, Jiang FM. Enhanced geothermal systems research
review. Geotherm Energy 2014;4:8e24.
[16] Hicks TW, Pine RJ, Willis-Richards J, Xu S, Jupe AJ, Rodrigues NEV. A hydraulic-
thermal- mechanical numerical model for HDR geothermal reservoir evalu-
ation. Int J Rock Mech Min 1996;33:499e511.
[17] Olaf K, Christoph C. Numerical simulation of flow and thermal transfer in
fractured crystalline rocks: application to the hot dry rock site in Rose-
manowes (U.K.). Geothermics 1998;27:1e23.
[18] Jonathan WR. Assessment of HDR reservoir stimulation and performance
using simple stochastic models. Geothermics 1995;24:385e402.
[19] Jupe AJ, Bruel D, Hicks T, Hopkirk R, Kappelmeyer O, Kohl T, et al. Modelling of
a European prototype HDR reservoir. Geothermics 1995;24:403e19.
[20] Xu CS, Dowd PA, Tian ZF. A simplified coupled hydro-thermal model for
enhanced geothermal systems. Appl Energy 2015;140:135e45.
[21] Xu C, Dowd PA, Wyborn D. Optimisation of a stochastic rock fracture model
using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. Min Technol 2013;122:153e8.
[22] Jiang FM, Chen JL, Huang WB, Luo L. A three-dimensional transient model for
EGS subsurface thermal-hydraulic process. Energy 2014;72:300e10.
[23] Gelet R, Loret B, Khalili N. A thermal-hydro-mechanical coupled model in local
thermal non-equilibrium for fractured HDR reservoir with double porosity.
J Geophys Res 2012;117:205e28.
[24] Kalinina E, McKenna SA, Hadgu T, Lowry T. Analysis of the effects of hetero-
geneity on heat extraction in an EGS represented with the continuum fracture
model. 37th Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering. Stanford, Cal-
ifornia, USA: Stanford University; 2012.
[25] Zhao YS, Wan ZJ, Kang JR. Introduction to high temperature rock mass
geothermal development. Beijing: Science Press; 2004. p. 2e5.
[26] Massachusetts institute of technology. Geothermal energy future e 21st
century enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) impact on the United States.
Boston: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 2007.
[27] Roy B, Jorg B, Fritz R. HDR/HWR reservoir: concepts, understanding and cre-
ation. Geothermics 1999;28:533e52.
[28] Quoilin S, Aumann R, Grill A, Schuster A, Lemort V, Spliethoff H. Dynamic
modeling and optimal control strategy of waste heat recovery organic
Rankine cycles. Appl Energy 2011;88:2183e90.
[29] Zhang S, Wang H, Guo T. Performance comparison and parametric optimi-
zation of subcritical organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and transcritical power cycle
system for low-temperature geothermal power generation. Appl Energy
2011;88:2740e54.
[30] Roy JP, Mishra MK, Misra A. Performance analysis of an organic Rankine cycle
with superheating under different heat source temperature conditions. Appl
Energy 2011;88:2995e3004.
[31] Heberle F, Brüggemann D. Exergy based fluid selection for a geothermal
organic Rankine cycle for combined heat and power generation. Appl Therm
Eng 2010;30:1326e32.
[32] Wu ZJ. The use of new energy and renewable energy. Beijing: Mechanical
Industry Press; 2006.
[33] Chen ZS. Advanced engineering thermodynamics. Beijing: Higher Education
Press; 2008.
[34] Huber ML, Ely JF. A predictive extended corresponding states model for pure
and mixed refrigerants including an equation of state for R134a. Int J Refrig
1994;17:18e31.