Conference program

The impact and awareness of geothermal as a renewal heat and electric power resource is growing globally. According to the 2019 EGEC geothermal market report, geothermal development has had a lower growth than expected for the last decade, due to both legislative, technological, and business challenges, but the EGEC president Miklos Antics expects the current decade to be the geothermal decade. CGER is also now experiencing an increasing number of requests for information on geothermal activities and potential in Norway.

Traditional geothermal heat pumps and geothermal heat storage will remain central in Norwegian exploitation, but new markets are now being investigated, such as geothermal electricity production on Svalbard, deep sea, and through exploitation of oil and gas infrastructure on the continental shelf. International collaboration, through such programs as Horizon Europe and ERA, will also further development in Norway. The ongoing revision of the Energy21 strategy under the Norwegian Oil and Energy ministry will determine policy on renewable energy, and therefore be central to geothermal research and innovation in Norway moving ahead.

This year's conference will focus on creating a better understanding of how geothermal fits into the Norwegian energy budget and economy, thereby contributing to a sustainable development of geothermal as a renewable energy resource in Norway, through a national effort and through collaboration with expertise and knowhow internationally. Virtual networking will be facilitated in the breaks, enabling follow up of talks, following up with existing contacts and establishing new ones. We aim to do our utmost to make this a relevant and rewarding conference despite the current covid19 situation. 

Welcome

September 1st and 2nd 0900-0910

Fionn Iversen, CGER

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY IN NORWAY AS A LOW EMISSION SOCIETY - STRATEGY AND NEEDS

Wednesday September 1st, 0910-0940

Lars Andreas Lunde, Olje- og energidepartementet / Ministry of Petroleum and Energy

This keynote will give the audience an understanding of how the Norwegian government sees the future role of geothermal energy in Norway.

STATUS ON GEOTHERMAL EXPLOITATION AND MARKET OPPORTUNITIES IN NORWAY

Thursday September 2nd, 0910-0940

Thor Erik Musæus, Geothermal Energy Nordic AS

The potential for geothermal exploitation in Norway is huge and under-communicated. Heating and hot water represents an important part of Norway's total energy consumption. Energy from the crust of the earth will play a key role in reducing our climate footprint.

Geothermal power production on Iceland - state of the art and remaining challenges

Árni Magnússon, ISOR

September 1. 0940

Research on Iceland's energy resources goes back to the 18th century. Systematic energy research by Icelandic government institutes started in 1945 and has been carried out continuously ever since. Iceland GeoSurvey and its predecessor have from the start played a key role in this work. These activities of the Icelandic power industry have resulted in about 66% of the primary energy use in Iceland has its source in geothermal energy. Generating electricity with geothermal energy has increased significantly in recent years. Geothermal power facilities currently generate 25% of the country's total electricity production.

There are several, state of the art high temperature powerplants in Iceland, dating back to the 1970´s, generating from geothermal resources. These are Hellisheiði Powerplant (303 MWe), Nesjavellir (120 MWe), Reykjanes (100 MWe) Þeistareikir (90 MWe), Svartsengi (75 MWe) and Krafla (60 MWe).

Direct use applications have as well been a very important part of geothermal utilisation in Iceland, where district heating has been the main beneficiary of hot water production along with balneology, aquaculture, drying of foods, greenhouse growing etc, either through co-generation with power production or directly from low temperature resources all over the country.

The Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP) is a study of high temperature hydrothermal systems in Iceland in the attempt to increase the output from conventional geothermal fields. It is a collaborative effort by a consortium of Icelandic power companies and the Icelandic government, formed to determine if utilizing supercritical geothermal fluids would improve the economics of power productions, reaching temperatures above 450°C at about 5 km depth. A standard 2.5 km deep high temperature geothermal well power equivalent to approximately 5 MWe while an IDDP well may be expected to yield up to 50 MWe. 

Technology development for sustainable exploitation of geothermal energy from high temperature wells

Sturla Sæther, Equinor, Hieu-Nguyen Hoang, SINTEF

September 1. 1000  

For sustainable exploitation of geothermal energy, robust and cost-efficient casing systems are an absolute requirement. However, the harsh operation conditions encountered in the high-temperature (HT) geothermal reservoirs are very challenging and are detrimental for the well integrity. Improper materials selection and design principles may lead to serious failure events, and loss of the production well, as reported in many HT geothermal well projects. In order to solve the current challenges, a novel design tool, Casinteg, was developed in the HotCaSe project for efficient global well analyses. The developed tool aims to provide a better understanding of the influence of the high temperature operation conditions on the well integrity and to bridge the knowledge gap in the current design standard codes. The tool is currently used to evaluate robust well design solutions for the planned IDDP3 well where the operation condition up to 450⁰C can be expected.

Silica solubility in deep geothermal wells

Morten Tjelta, IFE

September 1. 1020  

Silica scaling is an important issue in deep geothermal energy wells and knowledge about solubility is important for scaling prediction and mitigation strategies. However, there is limited data available at high temperatures in the presence of salt. This work describes an experimental setup developed to study solubility at high pressures and temperatures (up to 500 °C and 350 bar). Benchmark experiments show quartz solubility values in agreement with literature data.

Simulations and analysis of induced seismicity for a hydraulic stimulation test at the Reykjanes geothermal field, Iceland

Eirik Keilegavlen, UiB

September 1. 1040 

The ERiS project was a joint project of the University of Bergen and NORSAR with collaboration with Equinor and international partners, with central partners in Iceland. The project aimed at improved understanding of low-pressure stimulation of enhanced geothermal systems. To that end the project undertook an interdisciplinary study of a stimulation experiment in the Reykjanes geothermal field in Iceland. The aim of the study was to construct a numerical simulation model based on state-of-the-art numerical tools and compare simulation results with seismic observations of induced events.

We present the workflow used to combine local and regional geological data, seismic observations and information gained from the construction and initial operation of the injection well. The resulting simulation model incorporates fluid flow, deformation of the host rock and sliding of the main faults in the reservoir. The availability of such a simulation model allowed for experimentation with scenarios for fluid flow parameters. The presentation will emphasize the critical role of integrating data from different sources, as well as challenges and opportunities relating to interdisciplinary work.

Program committee

• Fionn Iversen, NORCE. Program Chair
• Ranveig Nygaard Bjørk, NORCE
• Sæunn Halldorsdottir, UiB
• Jan Atle Andresen, Huismann
• Christian von der Ohe, GCE NODE
• Torbjørn Vrålstad, SINTEF

Contact: post@cger.no