European Geothermal Congress (EGC) 2022 was held in Berlin, Germany from 17 to 21 October 2022. Germany is the 4th largest market in Europe in terms of geothermal-energy use for urban heating and cooling, and the largest in terms of capacity-development plans. Organised every 3 years by EGEC, the European association representing the geothermal sector, the European Geothermal Congress – EGC – is the largest geothermal event in Europe.
It brings together all the various stakeholders involved in the sector, whether they be academics, industrial companies, financial partners, policy-makers or social organisations.
A paper was submitted on “Deep Geothermal Drilling Real-Time Performance Prediction and Optimization Using Artificial Intelligence Methods” and a poster was presented on this paper on the second day of the EGC 2022. Henning Knauer, a researcher from Fraunhofer Research Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems IEG, conducted a lecture and presented the poster on the theme of “Geothermal drilling and Construction of geothermal wells”.
The paper focuses on the subject of poor drilling performance and the development of suitable deep geothermal drilling performance prediction and optimization models using artificial intelligence methods. The objective of the developed models is to enable the prediction of the rate of penetration (ROP) and the drilling process performance based on process parameters available in real-time at the surface of the drilling site. The ability to predict the ROP with reasonable accuracy is a prerequisite for the optimization of the drilling process and its overall efficiency, which will be the focus of current research work. The results of the whole development process, including a review of the state of the art in research, the data exploration, extraction, curation, and verification strategies, plus the final development of the artificial intelligence models are presented in this paper. The paper is a joint effort by the OptiDrill project coordination team composed by Henning Knauer, Shahin Jamali, Volker Wittig and Rolf Bracke from the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Energy Infrastructures and Geothermal Systems IEG.
About EGC
The European Geothermal Congress (EGC) is one of the biggest events of geothermal energy that brings together the entire European geothermal sector, and attracts hundreds of people from Europe and around the world. Organised every 3 years, the congress continues the series of European geothermal events that originated under the IGA (International Geothermal Association) umbrella. Since 2013, the European Geothermal Congress is being organised by EGEC, the European Geothermal Energy Council, which is the trade association for geothermal in Europe. Every edition is co-organised by a national member of EGEC.
Hosting a combination of events for different stakeholders creates a unique opportunity for those working in different aspects of geothermal, whether academic, industrial or societal, to come together. EGC includes a scientific conference with both oral and poster presentations, speakers from Industry and specialised events for business development, events and presentations for and from national and European policy makers, an exhibition, training courses, networking and social events and side conferences for European projects.
