| Abstract |
In recent decades, by increasing concerns about climate change as a result of global warming, the development of renewable energy has increased significantly across the world. Geothermal is a clean energy that plays an important role in eliminating carbon footprint. The high costs of exploration and drilling stages of conventional geothermal projects have caused their growth rate to be less than solar and wind energies. By reviewing practical reports and papers, this research focuses on harvesting geothermal energy from oil and gas fields that are matured. The two important features of aged hydrocarbon fields include a large volume of co-produced water and existing facilities at the surface that make geothermal extraction more feasible from an economical point of view. There are also exploration and production data that can help to reduce the costs and risks of geothermal projects. Then, methods of repurposing the aged hydrocarbon fields for geothermal utilization are reviewed and their applications in oil fields or other industries which need heat are conducted. In addition to using the produced heat directly, it could be used for power generation by Organic Rankin Cycle (ORC) systems which are suitable for low to intermediate geothermal resources. There are installed capacities in China and USA which use geothermal energy for power generation. Finally, by reviewing four practical instances of individual retrofitting, the details of the processes are listed. The results show that the costs of retrofitting disused wells are two times less than drilling a new well at least. Furthermore, the environmental risks of geothermal production are discussed. This paper helps decision makers for repurposing the oil and gas fields for geothermal utilization. |