Thermo-economic Investigation of an Enhanced Geothermal System Organic Rankine Cycle and Combined Heating and Power System

As a potentially viable renewable energy, Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGSs) extract heat from hot dry rock (HDR) reservoirs to produce electricity and heat, which promotes the progress towards carbon peaking and carbon neutralization. The main challenge for EGSs is to reduce the investment cost. In the present study, thermo-economic investigations of EGS projects are conducted. The effects of geofluid mass flow rate, wellhead temperature and loss rate on the thermo-economic performance of the EGS organic Rankine cycle (ORC) are studied. A performance comparison between EGS-ORC and the EGS combined heating and power system (CHP) is presented. Considering the CO2 emission reduction benefits, the influence of carbon emission trading price on the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is also presented. It is indicated that the geofluid mass flow rate is a critical parameter in dictating the success of a project. Under the assumed typical working conditions, the LCOE of EGS-ORC and EGS-CHP systems are 24.72 and 16.1 cents/kWh, respectively. Compared with the EGS-ORC system, the LCOE of the EGS-CHP system is reduced by 35%. EGS-CHP systems have the potential to be economically viable in the future. With carbon emission trading prices of 12.76 USD/ton, the LCOE can be reduced by approximately 8.5%.