Consortium

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (IEG)

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Geolorn Limited (GEO)

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Geothermal Engineering LTD
(GEL)

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United Kingdom Research and Innovation (BGS)

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Bestec GMBH (BESTEC)

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Technovative Solutions LTD
(TVS)

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Radial Drilling Europe BV (RDE)

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Precision Varionic International Limited (PVI)

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ENBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg AG (EnBW)

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Well Guidance B.V. (WG)

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Orkuveita Reykjavikur SF (ON)

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A real-time advisory system for geothermal drilling and well completion optimisation.

Contact

OptiDrill Co-ordinator: Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (IEG), Hansastrasse 27C, Munchen 80686, Germany.

Email: info@optidrill.eu

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OptiDrill project is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research
and Innovation Action under grant agreement No. 101006964

Copyright © 2021 OptiDrill. All Rights Reserved.

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Angewandten Forschung E.V. (IEG)

The Fraunhofer Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems (IEG) is part of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der angewandten ForscKung e.V. (Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement oI Applied Research), Europe'ss leading application-oriented research organization. With its unit for R&D on geothermal systems, located in western Germany, the IEG hosts unique world-class on-site and in-situ laboratories, drilling rigs and test-site equipment for applied research at all spatial and temporal scales. The IEG offers its facilities and extraordinary R&D infrastructures for innovative activities on geothermal energy synergically with its departments' Storage & Subsurface Systems, Energy Technologies and Infrastructures, Georesources, Monitoring and Artificial intelligence, and Geotechnologies located in Bochum, Aachen, and Weisweiler. The departments are active in geothermal technology development for drilling (thermal, mechanical, hydraulic), monitoring and process evaluation, materials, and products for boreholes, power plants, direct uses by using testfacilities from micro-to-macro scale, exploration and exploitation of georesources, reservoir analysis, raw materials, and energy storage solutions. The IEG has developed and conducted curricula and tailor-made training for multiple target groups (project developers, finance industry, engineers & planners, technicians & installers). The IEG also provides experience in entity & business planning, financing and market positioning of large-scale R&D infrastructures for international users.

Role in OptiDrill: IEG bring their expertise in developing water and mud DTH hammers and has DTH hammer testing facility They will develop and test OptiDrill hammers. They will also perform validation activities ofOptiDrill systems.
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Geolorn Limited (GEO)

Geolorn Ltd. (GEO) is a project management and logistical support company that works across the Resources Exploration and Exploitation Industries. GEO brings together specialist technologies and personnel, to ensure project efficacies, optimal cost profiles and best practices, often working with new and POC technical proposals. GEO is ideally suited to this proposal, as it offers industry specific insights and advice, which will help to maximise the industrial effectiveness of the equipment research programme, hugely important for ensuring that any research has a tangible effect to the deep geothermal drilling industry. GEO provides deep hammer drilling service provider to global energy resource companies, R&D work in fluid hammer systems, deep well design services, project implementation services to several geothermal projects, and have global connections with major equipment manufacturers and service companies.

Role in OptiDrill: GEO will lead the exploitation of the technology and industrial applications, commercialisation for technology and monitoring of industry benefits. GEO has global experience of deep geothermal drilling projects, equipment utilisation and shortcomings and are experienced in working with funding groups, risk rationalisation, mitigation and project management.
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Geothermal Engineering LTD (GEL)

GEL is a small and medium sized enterprise, founded in 2008. The company is a developer of deep geothermal heat and power projects in the UK and Italy. Of particular relevance to this proposal is the United Downs Deep Geothermal Project in Cornwall. This project is the first geothermal power plant in the United Kingdom and GEL is the developer and operator. The project has drilled two deep wells into a target fault structure within granite. Both wells are directional and the deepest is 5.25km. As operator of the project GEL owns all of the drilling / logging data. GEL is already linked to two operational H2020 projects on deep geothermal development:
1. S4CE – Science for clean energy (https://science4cleanenergy.eu/)
2. MEET – Multi-site EGS demonstration (https://www.meet-h2020.com/)

Role in OptiDrill: GEL Will provide data from two wells drilled during late 2018 and 2019. Wells are in igneous and metamorphic formations with depths reaching 5,250m. There will be additional data during the workover and testing phase, that can be tied back into the drill data.
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United Kingdom Research and Innovation (BGS)

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a component organisation of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) which is the UK's leading body for basic, strategic and applied research. The British Geological Survey was founded in 1835 and is the world’s longest established national geological survey with sites throughout the UK and Headquarters in Nottingham (Keyworth).
BGS seeks to advance the understanding of the structure, properties and processes of the solid Earth system through interdisciplinary surveys, monitoring and research for the benefit of society. BGS is a public sector organisation responsible for advising the UK government on all aspects of geosciences, as well as providing impartial geological advice to industry, academia and the public. BGS comprises four Scientific Themes: Environmental Change, Adaptation and Resilience (ECAR); Decarbonisation and Resource Management (DRM); Multihazards and Resilience (M&R); Digital. The M&R theme centres on research into the dynamic processes in the Earth's core, mantle, and crust, and the space environment surrounding our planet. It is important to understand how these processes create and control hazards to life, the environment, and economic infrastructure. This will enable better forecasts to be made of earthquake occurrence and volcanic eruptions, and of related hazards including tsunamis. Scientific knowledge is translated into information and risk analyses to assist decision makers in their task of developing adaptation and mitigation strategies to minimise harm. Within the DRM theme, BGS is a world leader in carbon capture and storage science and geophysical research into the structure of underground reservoirs and conducts research into geothermal energy deployment and utilisation. Additionally, the Groundwater SD provides groundwater-related capability in the hydrosciences for the benefit of the UK, and internationally. ECAR theme addresses issues related to the sustainability of water resources and quality, the impacts of environmental change on the water cycle, natural hazards in the context of groundwater and groundwater and human health. The BGS Digital theme are leaders in development of technology to manipulate geoscience data, including modelling. It is the UK's premier provider of objective and authoritative geoscientific data, information and knowledge for sustainable use of natural resources, reducing risk and living with the impacts of environmental change. BGS has a strong reputation in geospatial statistical tools for researching process distribution, quantification of uncertainty and growing reputation in machine learning of static and dynamic geoscience data. BGS hosts the National Geoscience data Centre (NGDC) the national place of deposit for all subsurface data from the UK landmass after a moratorium (up to 4 years post acquisition), with access to all data collected from the UK Continental Shelf. BGS maintains collections of borehole records, core materials, geophysical logging data and site investigation reports to underpin our science. Groundwater data includes systematic national hydrogeological mapping, water well records, time series of groundwater levels, groundwater quality analyses and many research datasets. BGS provides open access and under licence. Open Access data are by published under OpenGeoscience, a free service for viewing maps, downloading data, scans, photos and other information. Additional data is available under licence including resource maps, 3D geological maps and groundwater information.
BGS has extensive experience in coordinating and contributing to a number of significant EU-funded initiatives including OneGeology Europe, the European Plate Observing System (EPOS), GeoSeas and EMODNET and are key partners in two European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) projects. Between 2007 and 2015 BGS published a total of 2639 peer reviewed journal articles which have been cited 28,126 times averaging 10.66 citations per paper (BGS H-index 60). BGS is accredited to ISO 9001:2015 at its Keyworth, Edinburgh, Wallingford and Cardiff sites. The British Standards Institute has provided BGS with independent third party certification of its Management System and the interacting business processes across all its activities.

Role in OptiDrill: BGS have extensive data banks, including UKCS, along with a vast collection of cores recovered from many years of drilling. They also have a multi-disciplinary back office team that will assist greatly in the understanding of data and its efficacy in the ML process.
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Bestec GMBH (BESTEC)

BESTEC GmbH is a Germany based renewable energy company focusing on using geothermal energy from natural and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) for electrical power production. The aim of the company is to combine the particular strengths of research and industry to create and implement innovative energy programs. BESTEC actively and competently supervises geothermal energy projects from the moment of their conception to their implementation and maintenance, offering analysis, planning and engineering services. Tailored concepts and innovative ideas guarantee the highest international safety standards. BESTEC was founded in 2001. It was member of the management of the EEIG Heat Mining operating the EGS power plant in Soultz-sous-Forêts, France (2001-2016). The company achieved to develop two commercially funded EGS projects in the megawatt range in Germany, one at Landau (2007) and the other one at Insheim (2012), and takes also interest in geothermal especially EGS developments worldwide (Abu Dhabi, Australia, Egypt, England, France, Hungary, Korea, Slovak Republic, Switzerland, USA, Turkey, Japan,...). In February 2014, BESTEC was announced by the European Geothermal Energy Council as winner of the Geothermal Innovation Award for their contribution to the development of commercial EGS projects. On November 5th, 2007, we received the Okologia Prize of the Ecology and Democracy Foundation "for our exemplary commitment to the field of geothermal energy".
Our main targets within the OptiDrill project are to contribute to the project objectives with all experiences gained with drilling different rock types in several geothermal projects in the past, to improve the learning curve of the OptiDrill system and by directly transferring the knowledge gained from the project into ongoing field operations. BESTEC is still maintaining strong informal links with partners working on geothermal projects worldwide through which the drilling market can be monitored, and geothermal drilling data can be requested.

Role in OptiDrill: BESTEC will provide the data from across their project portfolio including Eden Project, as well as new data from a well yet to be drilled, which will be extremely useful, as there is every opportunity for realtime development of the process side of data for the ML/AI integration.
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Technovative Solutions LTD (TVS)

Technovative Solutions (TVS) is a UK based company and has a diverse expertise in measurement and monitoring system, machine learning and AI, software development and solutions including cloud computation and deployment, industrial ontology, IoT, decision support system, design optimisation, knowledge based engineering, process automation, life cycle analysis, life cycle cost analysis, sustainability etc. that have been reflected on several H2020 funded projects.
TVS has a pool of experienced dissemination and exploitation professionals to take innovative products and services to the market and ensures a successful adoption of innovative technology applying the change management methodology. We develop business strategies to achieve target goals maximising the resources available. TVS’ software engineers have extensive experience of leading teams working on large multi-partner software development projects within an Agile environment. We have developed cloud-based databases and platforms on various EU projects. We have experience in developing high-performance operational data warehouse. TVS develops solutions with the ability to ingest, store and protect large volumes of data from various sources, including structured and non-structured data coming either in batch as well as real-time. TVS has extensive experience in Data Sources, API Gateways and Data staging.
TVS also has performed cradle to grave Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), Life cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) and Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) for different thermal storage systems. TVS has core expertise in the field of energy and environment assessment. Using OpenLCA and SimaPro LCA software we have assessed environmental performance of industrial technologies including energy production and manufacturing from cradle to cradle life cycle perspectives.
TVS was created in 2012 as an innovation and business development accelerator. It drives innovation by bringing its knowledge, expertise, and understanding of technical, economic and industrial challenges as well as its global connections to the smart ecosystems around SMEs and Large enterprises.

Role in OptiDrill: From their experience in other H2020 projects on Geothermal energy called GeoCoat, GeoDrill, GeoPro, GeoHex and GeoSmart, TVS will develop monitoring system and perform levelised cost of energy and environmental impact analysis. TVS will also lead the dissemination and exploitation work package of OptiDrill.
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Radial Drilling Europe BV (RDE)

Radial Drilling Europe b.v. is enhancing salt, oil, gas and geothermal wells since 2017 in the European Union. One trailer mounted self-powered unit is available for well enhancement up to 4500-meter depth. The company is licence holder of the radial drilling technology from sister company Radial Drilling Services Inc in Houston. RDS is delivering worldwide expertise with the supervisor and operators to run the equipment. One crew consist of European citizens only. Maintenance, logistics, datalogging and geological studies are carried out by local service partners under supervision of Radial Drilling Europe b.v. The technology is applied more than 1900 times with up to 10 systems. In the EU on average 5 wells are enhanced per year.
Target markets have in common that the interface between well bore and reservoir is mostly sub-optimal. Velocities just around the well bore are the highest of the reservoir and create a natural bottleneck. In time, fouling is most likely to happen just in this bottleneck, creating small to very severe production losses. In the nineties RDS invented a technology to create 4 to 8 laterals with a diameter of 20 to 40 mm and a length of 100 meters perpendicular to the well bore to overcome the near well bore bottleneck. From then on thousands of laterals are jetted mainly in oil wells around the world. Some smaller numbers were created in gas, water-injection and salt wells. To transfer the technology from the worldwide oil- and gas market to the European geothermal market, Radial Drilling b.v. was established. The company started with projects in the geothermal-, salt and oil markets. The geothermal projects are supported with National and EU funding. The first geothermal well enhancement, at ECW in North of the Netherlands was not successful. Less experienced competitors jetted two other projects in the geothermal market and were not successful either. In an un going project with lessons learned a project in IJselmuiden (NL) (2200 meter) and Mol (B) (4200 meter) are scheduled within the coming months. The geothermal projects are technology supported by several research organizations such as TNO, VITO and Frauenhofer. Despite all technology support, the success rate in Europe is far below average in comparison with international standards of sister company RDS.
Minor mechanical and logical issues caused a delay in the first (oil) project. These issues where quickly solved. Success rate in the following projects was still below average. In an ongoing research the causes are investigated. The first results show a clear indication that provided data is different than specified. During operation, feedback is very hard to get. If circumstances are different than specified sub optimal procedures, tools and target layers are selected which have all together a major impact on the success rate. This issue is not special for the geothermal market. There is however a major difference between geothermal- and other markets. The potential benefit for one “single doublet geothermal operator” is a fraction of the potential benefit from an operator of an oil field with 200 to 1000 oil wells. The result is that a geothermal operator will stop after one unsuccesfull trial where an oil operator will do a test with 3 tot even 5 wells before giving up. The effect is that potential benefit from this technology does not come into the geothermal market despite very positive computer simulations from different companies (TNO, and Panterra).
Cheap sustainable heat at low electricity consumption is key to get this part of the world free from fossil fuel. In three month time cities require a lot of heat. Electric cables are too small to deliver the required power. Geothermal heat can be delivered in many area’s just from 2 to 5 km distance. To get this heat out the subsurface at reasonable costs the water should be flow in volumes of 200 to 600 m3 per hour with low pressures losses. Today many geothermal plants can only deliver 200 to 300 m3 of hot water at very high pressure losses. Several studies show an potential production increase due to well enhancement between 30 and 300 % with a cost increase of only 10 % of the drilling costs. A large part of the 10 % additional costs can be compensated by a lower investment in pumping systems. The effect will be more heat at no additional costs which will reduce total costs per kWh sharply. The critical point of the well enhancement process is the interface between tools and reservoir. A steel casing is no obstacle as long as the specifications are known. Completions have been seen which have been made with substandard casings which where left overs from other jobs but this cases are really scare. The real trouble starts with the void between casing and reservoir and end with the reservoir itself. Parts of unconsolidated layers may create wash-outs which will not give tools sufficient containment. With a lacking containment the tools will go up and down and create a wash out instead a nice 100 meter long lateral. Not all reservoirs have 100 % perfect or 100 % imperfect layers. Most reservoir have both. The major advantage of the Optidrill concept is that with the help of better data interpretation, the part, with sufficient containment can be targeted. The economics will change dramatically. With better data interpretation some projects will not stimulated at all. From other projects the tight layer will be targeted. With a current success rate of 25 % 4 jobs are needed to have one successful well enhancement. With 800.000 euro investment per job 2.400.000 euro is needed. Since up to now no operator want to invest this 2.4 million Euro success is not available. With better data some projects will not run at all which saves the 800.000 euro per project and others will be successful which ends up with a cost of 800.000 euro per successful well. The benefits for society are much larger. After a successful well enhancement a following well in the same reservoir is most likely to be successful as well if sophisticated well data is available. Drilling back to back can reduces jetting but also drilling costs significant. A second cost reduction of millions per plant can be realized.
We can contribute to this project with data. In our network one or two wells are enhanced per week. We are prepared to deliver the jetting data and well data of a number of wells. The wells will be selected on relevance for geothermal work and availablity (all though some may be oil or gas fields). Our customers will be asked to deliver as much data as possible to develop a correlation between their data and the out come of the jetting operation. If this correlation is set, new levels can be targeted more efficiently.

Role in OptiDrill: RDE will provide data and expertise for jetting and well completion.
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Precision Varionic International Limited (PVI)

PVI is an SME which designs and manufactures automotive position sensors and throttle pedals for some of the world's most iconic marques. Since 1990, PVI has delivered zero defect sensors to GM, McLaren Automotive, Fiat, Mercedes, Volvo and Smart. In 2000 PVI developed a fully integrated pedal and shipped more than one million pieces annually to Ford. PVI has produced in-house screen-printed carbon ink formulations for automotive potentiometers for 25 years being a major supplier of contact and none-contact position and acceleration sensors. In total PVI have supplied the market with more than 30 million units. PVI is involved in the development of process protocols to enable the introduction of Nano-Cu in automotive FR4 and Flex Circuits. In 2013, PVI developed an Electrostatic Jet (ESJET) printing technology for new printed additive manufacturing paradigm. The Licence was exclusively secured from Queen Mary College University of London and the technology which is now developed to TRL 7 includes a novel multi-head adaptation system that can achieve resolution, speeds and cost that far surpassed that of current ink-jet systems. The resultant system has been demonstrated for a wide range of materials, including: Nano-Cu, Nano-Ag and other Nano-ceramic filled inks and pastes for electrode structures, semi-conductors, dielectrics organic polymers and reactive organo-metallic inks. Each of these materials has been printed to create components specifically defined and specified by Industrial end users and applications for Flexible automotive aerials and sensors, metal meshed for OLED and touch screens, flexible heating elements for Radome in electric vehicles, conductive through silicon vias and mechanical strengthening ribs for thin Si-wafers. Recently (2018) PVI developed a novel remote continuous real-time monitoring system of corrosion under insulation (CUI) in pipelines (Patent Pending). This development was carried out in conjunction with GeoDrill lead TWI who assisted through its extensive knowledge base and corrosion testing facilities. An adaptation of the CUI monitoring system will be used to monitor the real time integrity of sensors to be manufactured in this project.

Role in OptiDrill: PVI will bring their expertise in designing and manufacturing sensor for automotive industry and will transfer their sensor design and manufacturing knowledge and expertise to geothermal sector.
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ENBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg AG (EnBW)

EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg is one of the largest energy companies in Germany and Europe. Major business segments are Sales, Grids, Renewable Energies, Generation and Trading. EnBW has some 5.5 million customers and 23,000 employees. The annual revenue amounted to more than €19 billion in 2019. The total installed capacity is 14,000 MW electricity including 2,615 MW based on renewable energy. EnBW operates in close cooperation with partners two geothermal power plants (Bruchsal/Germany and Soultzsous-Forêts/France).

Role in OptiDrill: EnBW will provide data from wells drilled in very difficult conditions in Turkey, as well as a commercial interface for the project advancement as they are major utility company.
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Well Guidance B.V. (WG)

Well Guidance B.V. is a Directional Drilling Services company specializing in providing services to the Geothermal and Oil & Gas industries. Our clients which are in the main; government entities, rig operators or energy suppliers actively involved within the Geothermal and O&G Industries.
While drilling wells, our engineers use specialized equipment, such as downhole drilling motors that are steered and monitored with our MWD (Measurements While Drilling) Systems. Drilling parameters are recorded as standard, such as Depth, Rotational Speed, Torque, Drilling fluid Pressure, Flow-rates, Weight on Bit (WOB) and resultant Rate of Penetration (ROP).

Role in OptiDrill: WG will provide data from both sedimentary and volcanic wells, along with data produced from deviated wells, and possibly including side-track operations.
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Orkuveita Reykjavikur SF (ON)

ON Power (www.on.is) was established in Iceland in 2013 as a subsidiary of Reykjavik Energy (www.or.is). ON is a leading power company that produces electricity, mainly by harnessing geothermal energy, to more than half of the population of Iceland. The company is a world leader in the utilisation of geothermal energy, that produces electricity and geothermal water for district heating. Renewable power sources account for more than 70% of the total primary energy consumption in Iceland, far higher than anywhere else in the world. Its district heating utility is the largest geothermal district heating utility in the world.
Power Plants
ON owns and operates three power plants: Nesjavellir and Hellisheiði geothermal plants and the Andakílsárvirkjun hydroelectric station. The combined output of operations is 450 MW of electrical power and 1,100 of thermal power. The utilisation of renewable energy resources has enabled Iceland to reach its 20/20/20 target, set by the EU. Almost all the electricity in Iceland is produced with renewable energy resources. ON Power actively pursues social responsibility in its activities and is engaged in extensive innovation on environmentally sound energy production.
Hellisheiði Geothermal Plant
Hellisheiði geothermal plant is situated in the Hengill area in SW Iceland and provides electricity and hot water for space heating in the industrial and domestic sectors. Production capacity is 303 MW electricity and 133 MW thermal energy. Geothermal activity in the Hengill system is connected with three volcanic systems. At least three volcanic eruptions have occurred in the Hengill area in the last 11,000 years, the most recent being 2,000 years ago. The Hengill system is part of the wider Hengill region, which covers 112 square kilometers and is one of the most extensive geothermal areas in Iceland.
Nesjavellir Geothermal Plant
Nesjavellir geothermal plant generates electricity and hot water by utilizing geothermal water and steam. The plant output is 120 MWe and 300 MWt/1800 liters per second. The construction of the geothermal power station was started in 1987 and completed in 1990. Like the rest of the Hengill area, Nesjavellir is popular for recreational activities and boasts an outdoors area with marked hiking and riding trails.

Role in OptiDrill: ON will provide data for wells drilling in volcanic formation.
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