The Eavor-Lite demonstration project is a closed-loop system which consists of a large U-tube shaped well at 2.4km depth, with several kilometres of multilateral horizontal wellbores, and a pipeline connecting the sites on the surface.
Two drilling rigs are operated simultaneously from both sites and used to intersect the multilateral wellbores at depth. The first well for the facility began drilling on Friday, August 2nd and the second began drilling Sunday, August 4th. These wells, anticipated to be drilled and connected within two months, are the first step in the construction of the $10 million facility - the world's first truly closed-loop geothermal system.
Eavor states that its Eavor-Loop will be the world's first truly scalable form of green baseload power. As a completely closed-loop system, there is no fracking, no GHG emissions (unlike some geothermal projects), no earthquake risk, no water use, no produced brine or solids, and no aquifer contamination. The system circulates a benign working fluid, which is isolated from the environment in a closed circuit and collects heat from the natural geothermal gradient of the Earth.
Water is circulated in the inlet well, through the parallel wellbores to extract heat by conductive heat transfer with the rock and rises up the outlet wellbore at a higher temperature. The density difference between the inlet well and outlet well creates a thermosiphon which completely drives the flow, without any pumping power.
A test facility on surface is designed to measure all relevant performance data and enable optimisation of the system. Post completion, the Eavor-Lite facility will continue to provide an ongoing test facility for advanced operating fluids and other processes currently under development.
"We look forward to the construction and completion of the demonstration facility here in Alberta this summer. The drilling operations are scheduled to be completed in September of this year with full completion of the surface facility and initial testing beginning in Q4 2019," said Derek Riddell, VP operations.
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