Drilling in deep, super-critical ambients of continental Europe

A technological breakthrough of geothermal energy production


Lardarallo, the place where the world’s first geothermal power plant has been installed more than 100 years ago, is currently the scene of a most challenging scientific experiment. The DESCRAMBLE project, co-funded by the European Union within the "HORIZON 2020" initiative, is targeted to drill deep into the earth crust and to encounter super-critical geothermal reservoir conditions. At expected temperature and pressure conditions of more than 374 °C and 22 MPa, respectively, water will become supercritical.  That means that water is neither a liquid nor steam. In this form it can transport from depth up to ten times more energy than normal water or steam can produce in a conventional geothermal well.


The target of the DESCRAMBLE project, which is coordinated by Enel Green Power,  is to demonstrate that it is feasible to drill into supercritical reservoir zones and to handle safely the harsh temperature and pressure conditions. Therefore, novel drilling and measurement techniques will be developed and tested. To achieve this technological breakthrough, an existing well in Larderello (Tuscany, Italy), will be deepened from its present depth of 2.2 km down to 3 km – 3.5 km. It is planned to reach the so-called K-horizon, a prominent seismic reflection, interpreted as associated to super-critical deep geothermal reservoirs.


Our task within the project will focus on the interpretation of borehole geophysical data, which provide in-situ information on the physical and chemical conditions of the well environment. Objective of our log interpretation work is to characterize the reservoir in its thermal and hydraulic properties. This study will integrate open-hole geophysical logs, which are acquired prior and during deepening of the well, with the results of laboratory investigations on rock samples from the well and its surrounding.


Information on the current status of the project can be found at the DESCRAMBLE web page
http://www.descramble-h2020.eu/.