Modeling of SP responses for geothermal-fluid flow within EGS reservoir

Abstract

Self-potential (SP) is sensitive to groundwater flow and there are many causes to generate SP. Among many mechanisms of SP, pore-fluid flow in porous media can generate potential without any external current source, which is referred to as electrokinetic potential or streaming potential. When calculating SP responses on the surface due to geothermal fluid within an engineered geothermal system (EGS) reservoir, SP anomaly is usually considered to be generated by fluid injection or production within the reservoir. However, SP anomaly can also result from geothermal water fluid within EGS reservoirs experiencing temperature changes between injection and production wells. For more precise simulation of SP responses, we developed an algorithm being able to take account of SP anomalies produced by not only water injection and production but also the fluid of geothermal water, based on three-dimensional finiteelement-method employing tetrahedron elements; the developed algorithm can simulate electrical potential responses by both point source and volume source. After verifying the developed algorithm, we assumed a simple geothermal reservoir model and analyzed SP responses caused by geothermal water injection and production. We are going to further analyze SP responses for geothermal water in the presence of water production and injection, considering temperature distribution and geothermal water flow in the following research.