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Experimental Study of Water Injection into Geothermal Systems

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Abstract

Water injection or reinjection in geothermal reservoirs has been proven as a successful engineering technique with many benefits such as maintaining reservoir pressure and sustaining well productivity. However, many questions related to water injection into geothermal reservoirs still remain unclear; for example, how the in-situ water saturation changes with reservoir pressure and temperature, and how the reservoir pressure influences well productivity. In order to answer these questions, we studied the effects of temperature and pressure on the in-situ water saturation in a core sample using an experimental apparatus developed in this study. It was found that the in-situ water saturation decreases very sharply near the saturation pressure but not to the residual water saturation. When the mean pressure in the core sample decreases further, the in-situ water saturation decreases sharply again to the residual water saturation. Also investigated were the effects of pressure on well productivity index. We found that well productivity increased with an increase of mean reservoir pressure within a certain range and then decreased. The well productivity reached the maximum value at a pressure close to the saturation pressure. The results of this study may be useful to evaluate projects such as the waste water injection scheme at The Geysers.

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Abbreviations

\({\phi}\) :

Porosity

CTwet(T):

The CT number of the rock when it is fully saturated by water at a temperature of T

CTdry(T):

The CT number of the rock when it is fully saturated by air at a temperature of T

CTwater(T):

The CT number of water at a temperature of T

CTair(T):

The CT number of air at a temperature of T

PI :

Productivity index

P a :

The absolute atmosphere pressure

P mean :

The absolute mean pore pressure

P out :

The gauge pressure measured at the outlet of the core sample

Δp :

The differential pressure across the core sample

q :

The mass production rate at the outlet of the core sample

\({S_{\rm w}^{i}}\) :

The water saturations at ith point

V p :

The pore volume of the core sample

W core :

The weight of the core

\({W_{\rm core}^i}\) :

The weight recorded by Balance at ith points

W scale :

The reading of the scale

ρ w :

The water density

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Correspondence to Kewen Li.

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Li, K., Nassori, H. & Horne, R.N. Experimental Study of Water Injection into Geothermal Systems. Transp Porous Med 85, 593–604 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-010-9579-7

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