Geothermal Monitoring

Carina® GeoTH integrates ULTRA HD acoustic, temperature, and strain data to optimise geothermal monitoring and energy production, to provide reliable long-term reservoir monitoring.

Carina GeoTH is applicable to high temperature hydrothermal and enhanced geothermal fields. It delivers accurate information on reservoir stimulation, reservoir temperature evolution and sustainability, reservoir deformation due to change in pressure and temperature, and fracture networks including flow distribution. Importantly, it also provides real-time monitoring of induced seismicity.

Carina GeoTH accelerates the energy transition by enabling the utilisation of the Earth’s natural heat in an economical and sustainable manner to offer affordable and clean energy.

Silixa’s market leading distributed sensing systems, the underlying core technologies, provide unmatched quality data that form the basis of the integrated monitoring solution that can fulfil the demand for geothermal monitoring requirements, enhancing safety and efficiency.

The sensing element, a single fibre optic cable, either installed in shallow heat exchanger wells or cemented behind casing to the reservoir depth, can provide simultaneous and continuous measurements including temperature, seismic, microseismic, flow distribution, and strain.

• Induced Seismicity
• Temperature monitoring
• Deformation and subsidence monitoring
• Flow profiling/allocation in production and injection wells
• Reservoir time-lapse imaging/tomography using active & passive seismic surveys
• Microseismicity monitoring
• Cross-hole hydraulic characterization
• Well-integrity assessment
• Monitoring of cement curing processes

Carina® GeoTH can be used to better constrain zones with permeable fractures, either using passive or active seismic with an array of automated surface sources to monitor fracture evolution and behaviour at the geothermal site. The high temperature engineered cables and interrogators are capable of simultaneous DAS, DTS, and DSS measurement. This enables operators to

• Effectively map initial zones of mechanical stimulation using DAS microseismic monitoring
• Characterize reservoir evolution using time-lapse VSP imaging and permanent surface seismic sources
• Identify zones of flowing fractures using hydraulic tomography with low-frequency DAS strain

The acquired data supports the creation of numerical models of site fracture permeability and validation of hydrogeomechanical simulations that can guide subsequent injection/production well drilling and optimization of the EGS resources.

Silixa provides a comprehensive monitoring solution for geothermal projects including custom fibre optic cable design tailored to each project, cable deployment services, integrated monitoring system setup, on-demand surveys or autonomous continuous data acquisition, data management, processing, analyses and reporting.

Our data solutions are delivered by our highly skilled expert team with significant experience in the distributed sensing domains. Success of any system installation is assured by competency and robust procedures.

Robust sensor provides high-quality data in most difficult environments

The sensing element, the fibre optic cable, is permanently installed in the borehole. It is designed to operate in corrosive and high-temperature environments, and no maintenance is required since it does not include electronics or moving parts.

Multiple measurements, based on a single fibre optic cable: temperature, strain, microseismic, induced seismicity, flow profiling, can be acquired easily. The system is a reliable, long-term monitoring solution that maximises efficiency and enables optimised geothermal energy production.

High resolution data offers accurate insights into the reservoir

High resolution distributed acoustic sensing, temperature and strain data provide unparalleled high-spatial resolution measurements every 0.12 to 1.0 m along the fibre optic cable. This translates as reliable insight into the reservoir.

Unmanned and continuous or on-demand operations

Carina GeoTH can operate remotely and autonomously, providing continuous thermal, hydraulic, and mechanical reservoir parameters. This enables operators to optimise geothermal operations.

Cost-effective solution with large coverage, uninterrupted operations and no maintenance

Carina GeoTH is a highly flexible monitoring system offering continuous or on-demand data over large distances, 10s of kilometres, allowing to monitor multiple wells with a single interrogator.

Further cost savings are delivered by uninterrupted operations.

As the fibre is the sensor and there are no electronic and moving parts, there is no requirement for maintenance either.

Real-time processing and visual presentation of acoustic, strain, and temperature data for informed decision making

An Integrated Edge Processing System allows real-time data processing and visualisation allowing fast decision making based on accurate reservoir conditions.

Environmental monitoring for enhanced safety and sustainability

Carina GeoTH is a reliable and proven continuous monitoring solution that delivers reliable information on microseismic, induced seismicity, and well integrity assessment.

This verifies and assures the safety of operations and supports communication with the stakeholders, hence it helps our customers meet their legal, social, and environmental obligations.

It is an environmentally safe solution with reduced carbon footprint

The enhanced sensitivity of the underlying technology, the Carina® Sensing System, combined with the engineered Constellation™  optical fiber, provide the opportunity to use much smaller and permanently installed seismic sources. This reduces the environmental impact as it eliminates the need for large vibe trucks and repeated mobilization of technical teams.

Advancing the use of manmade geothermal power in geothermal monitoring

Carina GeoTH provides a reliable understanding of the thermal, mechanical, and hydraulic properties in a geothermal field, improving reservoirs efficiencies and that could lead to a broader and safe deployment of EGS, contributing to a low-carbon future.

Enhanced geothermal systems are manmade geothermal reservoirs created by injecting fluids into naturally high temperature (>150 °C) rock areas that are not already saturated with fluids. By injecting water into the heated rock and stimulating the formation, the reservoir’s natural permeability is improved allowing water to circulate through the fractures of the rock.

The water is heated when in contact with the rock, and as it returns to the surface through the production well, the heat from the hot water is used to produce electricity. If the reservoir permeability and high temperature can be sustained, geothermal becomes a sustainable long-term source of base-load energy with minimum environmental impact and low carbon emissions.