Geothermal Battery Workshop Follow-up - slides, presenter info, and paper

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May 19, 2020

Large-scale Subsurface Seasonal Solar Heat Storage for Future Value virtual workshop

The workshop saw over 210 participants. A big thank you to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah for hosting and organizing! We thank everyone for joining and hope it was valuable!

Click below for presenter contact info, slides and their comments:

Concept Overview………………………..Sidney Green….comments John McLennan..comments

Heat and Fluid Flow Calculations …..……..…. Palash Panja & John McLennan…slides..comments

Operational Considerations and Well Layouts ……..…......…. John McLennan….slides

Challenges of Sedimentary Basins …………………………..........…..…. Richard Allis.…slides

Site Potential from an Oil & Gas Industry Perspective ….…. Richard Newhart….slides..comments

Geochemical Considerations …………………………………….....….……. Joe Moore….slides…comments

Surface Facilities …………………………………….…………....………….…...…. Kevin Kitz.…slides

Facilitated Discussion and Summary ………………………....…..…. Sidney Green ….comments

Renewable Energy, published paper available via ScienceDirect (here) or preprint below the abstract:

Published paper:

GEOTHERMAL BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE

Sidney Green^{1 ✉️}, John Mclennan², Palash Panja², Kevin Kitz³, Rick Allis⁴ and Joseph Moore⁵

¹ Enhanced Production, Inc., Research Professor University of Utah
² Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Utah, the Energy & Geoscience Institute – University of Utah
³ KitzWorks, LLC
⁴ Consultant, Retired Director Utah Geological Survey
⁵ Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Utah, DOE-GTO FORGE Project
✉️ Corresponding author (S. Green)

A B S T R A C T

The Geothermal Battery Energy Storage (“GB”) concept has been proposed as a large-scale renewable energy storage method. This is particularly important as solar and wind power are being introduced into electric grids, and economical utility-scale storage has not yet become available to handle the variable nature of solar and wind.

The Geothermal Battery Energy Storage concept uses solar radiance to heat water on the surface. The heated water is then injected deep into the earth. This hot water creates a high temperature geothermal reservoir acceptable for conventional geothermal electricity production, or for direct heat applications. Storing hot water underground is not a new idea, the unique feature of the GB is its application to sedimentary basins with formations that are water saturated and exhibit high porosity and high permeability. For certain reservoirs like these, calculations suggest that nearly one hundred percent of the stored heat can practically be recovered, and long-term, even seasonal storage is possible.

Several publications have been presented by the authors on the GB that parametrically identified desirable reservoir characteristics. This is a review of those calculations and the inferred conclusions for a viable GB system. Potential GB system well configurations, injection and production scenarios and ultimate heat recovery for economic value are noted. Download preprint publication.

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Has energy storage kept pace with renewable technology?

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June 25, 2017

Solar energy, and to a lesser extent wind energy, have moved ahead of the ability to manage their intermittent nature without similar growth in cost effective energy storage.

On June 24, Sidney Green chaired a meeting on large-scale energy storage that could be used to support solar and wind electricity.  The meeting was supported by the National Science Foundation, Geothermal Energy SedHeat Program with cooperation of the American Rock Mechanics Association. 

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The small invited group considered a concept of solar thermal underground energy storage. 

Underground storage competes with surface heat storage in tanks, and is more complicated then surface storage in some ways.  However, for large-scale Gigawatt hours of energy storage, underground storage may be more practical and cost effective at least in some situations.

The full Report is available online here.