GEOPHIRES v2.0: updated geothermal techno-economic simulation tool

Abstract

This paper presents a new version (v2.0) of the geothermal techno-economic simulation tool GEOPHIRES [GEOthermal energy for Production of Heat and electricity (“IR”) Economically Simulated]. GEOPHIRES combines reservoir, wellbore, and surface plant technical models with cost correlations and levelized cost models to estimate the capital and operation and maintenance costs, instantaneous and lifetime energy production, and overall levelized cost of energy of a geothermal plant. In addition to electricity generation, direct-use heat applications and combined heat and power or cogeneration can be modeled. Various upgrades have been implemented to develop GEOPHIRES v2.0, including: updating the built-in cost correlations, coupling to the external reservoir simulator TOUGH2, enhancing the built-in wellbore simulator, converting the programming language to Python, and making the code open-source. Users are encouraged to build upon the tool, e.g., by implementing their own correlations or coupling to other simulators. In this paper, we discuss the GEOPHIRES v2.0 objectives and history, and we present the software architecture as well as built-in models and correlations. We include two example simulations and quick-start guide on how to run a simulation.