GEOPHIRES is a free and open-source geothermal techno-economic simulator. GEOPHIRES combines reservoir, wellbore, surface plant, and economic 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. Various reservoir conditions (EGS, doublets, etc.) and end-use options (electricity, direct-use heat, cogeneration) can be modeled. Users are encouraged to build upon to the GEOPHIRES framework to implement their own correlations and models. See the Documentation section below for more information.
This repository is the canonical source for the modern GEOPHIRES simulator, which succeeds the legacy GEOPHIRES v2.0. The name GEOPHIRES-X refers to the initial modernized (v3) framework. See the CHANGELOG for a detailed history of changes and release notes.
Free software: MIT license
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A web interface is available at gtp.scientificwebservices.com/geophires.
To run GEOPHIRES locally or to modify the source code, see the Getting Started Guide.
GEOPHIRES combines reservoir, wellbore, surface plant, and economic and cost models and correlations to estimate the capital and operation and maintenance costs, instantaneous and lifetime energy production, and overall levelized cost of energy of a geothermal plant.
The high-level software architecture is illustrated in the diagram below. Green, orange and blue rectangles refer to internal GEOPHIRES components, external user-interface components, and external reservoir simulators (TOUGH2), respectively. Rectangles with solid outline are always executed during a simulation run; rectangles with dashed outline refer to optional or user-provided components.
GEOPHIRES has a variety of different reservoir models including (1) Multiple parallel fractures model (Gringarten); (2) 1-Dimensional linear heat sweep model; (3) M/A thermal drawdown parameter model; (4) Percentage temperature drawdown model; (5) User-provided reservoir temperature production data; (6) Coupling to TOUGH2 external reservoir simulator; (7) SUTRA: Reservoir Thermal Energy Storage (RTES; also known as Underground Thermal Energy Storage - UTES); (8) Slender Body Theory (SBT); (9) Cylindrical.
GEOPHIRES can simulate three different end-uses of the geothermal heat: (1) direct-use heat (e.g. for industrial processing heating or residential space heating); (2) electricity (with subcritical ORC, supercritical ORC, single-flash, or double-flash plant); (3) co-generation of heat and electricity. The co-generation option considers bottoming cycle, topping cycle, and parallel cycle.
GEOPHIRES has 5 economic models to calculate the levelized cost of heat or electricity: (1) fixed charge rate (FCR) model; (2) standard discounting levelized cost model; (3) BICYCLE model; (4) CLGS; (5) SAM Single-owner PPA.
The capital and O&M costs for the different geothermal system components (exploration, well drilling, surface plant, etc.) are either provided by the user or calculated with built-in correlations.
For more information on the theoretical basis for GEOPHIRES see GEOPHIRES v2.0: updated geothermal techno‐economic simulation tool (Beckers & McCabe, 2019) and GEOPHIRES reference materials.
Available parameters are documented in the Parameters Reference.
Note that many parameters are interrelated and/or conditionally dependent on one another; reviewing the GEOPHIRES example(s) relevant to your use case in the following section is strongly recommended to gain a working understanding of how to construct valid sets of input parameters.
GEOPHIRES includes a variety of example input files demonstrating its features for different types of geothermal systems and case studies of real-world geothermal projects. Starting with an existing GEOPHIRES example that is similar to your intended use/application can be an easier approach to using GEOPHIRES than constructing your own inputs from scratch.
Example input .txt files and corresponding case report .out files are available in the tests/examples directory of the repository.
Example-specific web interface deeplinks are listed in the Link column.
| Example | Input file | Case report file | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example 1: EGS Electricity | example1.txt | .out | link |
| Example 1 with Add-Ons | example1_addons.txt | .out | link |
| Example 2: EGS Direct-Use Heat | example2.txt | .out | link |
| Example 3: EGS Co-generation | example3.txt | .out | link |
| Example 4: Hydrothermal Electricity | example4.txt | .out | link |
| Example 5: User-Provided Reservoir Data | example5.txt | .out | link |
| Example 6: TOUGH2 (Multiple Gradients) | example6.txt | .out | * |
| Example 7: TOUGH2 (Single Gradient) | example7.txt | .out | * |
| Example 8: Cornell Direct-Use Heat | example8.txt | .out | link |
| Example 9: Cornell Electricity | example9.txt | .out | link |
| Example 10: Heat Pump | example10_HP.txt | .out | link |
| Example 11: Absorption Chiller | example11_AC.txt | .out | link |
| Example 12: District Heating | example12_DH.txt | .out | link |
| Example 13: Redrilling due to Drawdown | example13.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Coaxial sCO2: Heat | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Coaxial_sCO2_heat.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Coaxial Water: Heat | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Coaxial_water_heat.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Uloop sCO2: Electricity | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Uloop_sCO2_elec.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Uloop sCO2: Heat | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Uloop_sCO2_heat.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Uloop Water: Electricity | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Uloop_water_elec.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: Uloop Water: Heat | Beckers_et_al_2023_Tabulated_Database_Uloop_water_heat.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: SBT High Temperature | example_SBT_Hi_T.txt | .out | link |
| CLGS: SBT Low Temperature | example_SBT_Lo_T.txt | .out | link |
| SUTRA Example 1 | SUTRAExample1.txt | .out | link |
| Multiple Gradients | example_multiple_gradients.txt | .out | link |
| Investment Tax Credit | example_ITC.txt | .out | link |
| Production Tax Credit | example_PTC.txt | .out | link |
| Fervo Project Red (2023) | Fervo_Norbeck_Latimer_2023.txt | .out | link |
| Fervo Cape Station 1: 2023 Results | Fervo_Project_Cape.txt | .out | link |
| Fervo Cape Station 2: 2024 Results | Fervo_Project_Cape-2.txt | .out | link |
| Fervo Cape Station 3: 400 MWe Production | Fervo_Project_Cape-3.txt | .out | link |
| Case Study: 500 MWe EGS Project Modeled on Fervo Cape Station (documentation) | Fervo_Project_Cape-4.txt | .out | link |
| Superhot Rock (SHR) Example 1 | example_SHR-1.txt | .out | link |
| Superhot Rock (SHR) Example 2 | example_SHR-2.txt | .out | link |
| SAM Single Owner PPA: 50 MWe | example_SAM-single-owner-PPA.txt | .out | link |
| SAM Single Owner PPA: 400 MWe BICYCLE Comparison | example_SAM-single-owner-PPA-2.txt | .out | link |
NREL GEOPHIRES Workshop: Features Overview & Examples
NREL GEOPHIRES Workshop: Case Studies
A HIP-RA web interface is available at gtp.scientificwebservices.com/hip-ra.
A Monte Carlo web interface is available at gtp.scientificwebservices.com/monte-carlo.
How to extend GEOPHIRES-X user guide
Additional materials can be found in /References.
If you are interested in sharing your extensions with others, or even contributing them back to this repository, you may want to follow the Development instructions. (You can also create a fork after doing an editable install so don't worry about picking this method if you're unsure.)