Deep sedimentary/basement reservoirs are usually characterized by low permeability, high drilling cost and a scarcity of data, as they are typically ignored by hydrocarbon exploration. Major exploration challenges relate to predicting deep sedimentary and basement reservoir structures and properties to identify suitable locations for reservoir-independent approaches, capable of overcoming the low permeability obstacle, such as Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) or closed-loop geothermal systems.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Increased knowledge base for developers to unlock unexploited geothermal resources, increase drilling success rate, increase geothermal sources performance and reduce the risk of induced seismicity and deploy geothermal energy in a sustainable way in environmental (notably on biodiversity and pollution) and socioeconomic terms.
• Citizens and local communities are engaged and benefit from local, more secure and affordable renewable energy sources.

Scope:

Advanced methods, technologies and conceptual models, for different geological settings, to identify suitable conditions for geothermal resource exploitation, tackling the issue of data scarcity and leveraging the information available. The proposals are expected to contribute to the assessment of environmental and social impacts and to unlock geothermal resources marked by low natural permeability at depths between 2000-6000m.

The scope covers advances beyond the state of the art in equipment, methods and models capable of providing in-depth understanding and predictive power for properties and processes beyond conventional depths. The proposals are expected to take into account the impact of reservoir conditions and parameters (i.e. in-situ stress, temperature, geo-mechanical, chemical properties) on the development and performance of the geothermal resources, covering, when relevant, aspects such as the suitability for different stimulation techniques, well designs and completion technologies, the possibilities for the coproduction of raw materials, wellbore stability.

The proposals are expected to validate the benefit of the proposed solution in the context of state-of-the-art decision and risk analysis methods.

To ensure trust building and communities’ support, partners are expected to practice inclusive societal engagement, which is early, continuous, and sensitive to the technical specificities (e.g. impact on biodiversity, water balance, pollution, land occupation, visual impact, noise as well as geo-mechanical changes (e.g. seismicity) and underground changes (e.g. disturbance of non-targeted aquifers)) that could affect local communities and ecosystems ^[1].

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

[1] For an example of a methodology for the assessment of sustainability, circularity and contribution to the EU resilience and technological autonomy of clean energy technology in the R&I pipeline, please see Study on circular approaches for a sustainable and affordable clean energy transition