Geoenergy

For the environmentally-friendly use and monitoring of deep geothermal resources, the Geoenergy group of INE emphasises strongly the development and testing of 1) novel and integrative concepts for the management of the deep underground and of 2) geophysical monitoring methods. Against this background, reservoir properties and processes and their influence on geophysical fields that are used for exploration and monitoring are crucial. To investigate this, experiments on different scales, from laboratory to reservoir scale, are carried out.

For example, the accumulation and remobilisation of clay minerals that influence the electric or electromagnetic response given by their special electric properties are investigated by flow-cell experiments. Test runs of innovative monitoring methods during hydro-mechanic and -chemical experiments in underground laboratories contribute to a fundamental understanding of the applied methods as well as the processes occurring during the experiment. Long-term magnetotelluric monitoring of hydromechanical processes in geothermal reservoirs is currently used to separate processes that are induced by reservoir engineering or operation from natural sources.

The development of new engineering and utilisation concepts bases on studies from large-scale infrastructures. In this respect data acquired at the European EGS research power plant at Soultz-sous-Forêts are continuously further exploited. The findings will be applied and tested in the future in two new infrastructures. Here, the Geoenergy group is involved strongly in the realisation of Geothermal Laboratory in the Crystalline Basement Rock GeoLaB that is on the Helmholtz Roadmap for research infrastructures. GeoLaB is designed mainly for testing novel methods, whereas a real case laboratory for geothermal heat supply and storage shall be established at Campus North of KIT.

The Geoenergy group cooperates strongly with the secondary phase group in the area of naturally occurring radioactive materials, NORM, in geothermal plants and radioisotopy of geothermal fluids.