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Production enhancement analysis of a supercritical CO2 multi-stage EGS with horizontal wells

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  • Wang, Gaosheng
  • Ma, Xiaodong
  • Song, Xianzhi
  • Li, Gensheng

Abstract

An enhanced geothermal system (EGS) combining supercritical CO2 and horizontal-well multi-stage fracturing is proposed to achieve the efficient development of hot dry rock. A 3D transient flow and heat transfer model is established to investigate the production performances of supercritical CO2 multi-stage EGS with horizontal wells. Subsequently, the heat extraction of the horizontal-well multi-stage and doublet-well EGSs is compared to determine the system validity. The heat extraction difference between the supercritical CO2 and water in the horizontal-well multi-stage EGS is analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of supercritical CO2. Furthermore, the flow and temperature fields of the supercritical CO2 multi-stage EGS with horizontal wells are studied. The influences of the stimulation scale, including the stimulated reservoir thickness, width, length and primary fracture spacing, on EGS production are discussed, while the parameter importance is determined by the gray correlation analysis method to perform a reasonable design of reservoir stimulation. The results show that the fluid production and energy efficiencies of the multi-stage EGS with horizontal wells reach 1.55 and 13.44 times, respectively, those of the doublet-well EGS. The supercritical CO2 can effectively mitigate the thermal breakthrough and decrease the injection pressure, obtaining larger operational economic efficiency compared to water EGS.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Gaosheng & Ma, Xiaodong & Song, Xianzhi & Li, Gensheng, 2026. "Production enhancement analysis of a supercritical CO2 multi-stage EGS with horizontal wells," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 256(PD).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:256:y:2026:i:pd:s0960148125017756
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2025.124111
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    References listed on IDEAS

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