INITIAL CHEMICAL AND RESERVOIR CONDITIONS AT LOS AZUFRES WELLHEAD POWER PLANT STARTUP
One of the major concerns of electric utilities in installing geothermal power plants is not only the longevity of the steam supply, but also the potential for changes in thermodynamic properties of the resource that might reduce the conversion efficiency of the design plant equipment. Production was initiated at Los Azufres geothermal field with wellhead generators not only to obtain electric energy at a relatively early date, but also to acquire needed information about the resource so that plans for large central power plants could be finalized. Commercial electric energy production started at Los Azufres during the summer of 1982 with five 5-MWe wellhead turbine-generator units. The wells associated with these units had undergone extensive testing and have since been essentially in constant production. The Los Azufres geothermal reservoir is a complex structural and thermodynamic system, intersected by at least 4 major parallel faults and producing geothermal fluids from almost all water to all steam. The five wellhead generators are associated with wells of about 30%, 60%, and 100% steam fraction. A study to compile existing data on the chemical and reservoir conditions during the first two years of operation has been completed. Data have been compiled on mean values of wellhead and separator pressures, steam and liquid flowrates, steam fraction, enthalpy, and pertinent chemical components. The compilation serves both as a database of conditions during the start-up period and as an initial point to observe changes with continued and increased production. Current plans are to add additional wellhead generators in about two years followed by central power plants when the data have been sufficiently evaluated for optimum plant design. During the next two years, the data acquired at the five 5-MWe wellhead generator units can be compared to this database to observe any significant changes in reservoir behavior at constant production.
- Research Organization:
- Stanford University, Stanford, California
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 892519
- Report Number(s):
- SGP-TR-84; CONF-850107-36; TRN: US200623%%311
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 10. annual workshop on geothermal reservoir engineering, Stanford, CA (US), 01/22/1985
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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