Improving the availability of thermal conductivity data and modeling how inaccurate thermal conductivity data affect geothermal power production models

The availability of site specific thermal conductivity data can be improved by measuring irregularly sized samples and by using GIS tools. New calculations for use with measurements of samples with irregular shapes and sizes result in valid thermal conductivity values. Using the new thermal conductivity data along with GIS tools reasonable estimates of thermal conductivity may be made for sites where no samples are available. Ten thirty-year long production simulations using different thermal conductivity values for reservoir rock and for overlying rock were completed resulting in produced water temperatures that varied by as much as +3% to -5.6% from the baseline. Such a large range in production temperatures could result in electrical power generation estimate errors as large as +8% to -15.