DEEP: Innovation for De-Risking Enhanced Geothermal Energy Projects

Project Description

The Nov. 2017 Mw 5.5 Pohang earthquake in South Korea induced during the reservoir creation phase of a deep geothermal energy project represents a major setback and tremendous challenge to future deep geothermal energy exploitation. Recent advancements in sensor technology, in combination with new machine learning based data analysis techniques, are opening up new horizons for the management of induced seismicity. The project DEEP aims to build and test the next generation of sensors and data analysis tools for induced seismicity monitoring, risk assessment and mitigation in real-time, with the final aim to safely manage deep geothermal operations. We will demonstrate these new technologies and processing workflow at the Utah FORGE EGS site and transfer the technologies and software to other sites in Europe, for example to the Haute Sorne project in Switzerland.