1 | US DOE Geothermal Officeeere.energy.gov Public Service of Colorado Ponnequin Wind Farm Geothermal Technologies Office 2014 Geothermal Case Studies

1 | US DOE Geothermal Office eere.energy.gov

Public Service of Colorado Ponnequin Wind Farm

Geothermal Technologies Office

2014 Geothermal Case Studies Challenge

Overview, Rules,

And Important Dates

Spring 2014


Goals and Objectives

• The overall goal of this project is for students to participate and contribute to a

crowd-sourced repository of public-access geothermal resource information:

– The repository is managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

through the Open Energy Information (OpenEI) wiki-based platform.

• Goals for NREL:

– To promote and encourage geothermal energy education amongst university

professors and students.

– To create a greater public awareness of geothermal energy.

– To add 40-50 new geothermal area case studies to OpenEI.

• Goals for Students:

– Allow students to gain knowledge about many aspects of geothermal energy from

exploration practices to development and utilization.

– Provide students with the opportunity to develop valuable research skills that will be

beneficial for the remainder of their academic careers.

– Students will become experts on the geothermal area they are researching.

– To win the Geothermal Case Study Challenge, gain recognition for excellence in

geothermal research, and present research at the 2014 GRC conference!


Project Overview

• Numerous universities around the country will be participating in the challenge. Student groups that produce the best case studies will be awarded paid travel to present their work in a special session at the 2014 GRC annual meeting in Portland Oregon, Sept 28th – Oct. 1st.

• Students will choose a geothermal resource area within the U.S., research the area, write a case study detailing the exploration and development history of the area, and populate their resource area’s webpage on http://en.openei.org.

http://en.openei.org/


Geothermal Case Study Challenge Rules

• Students may work independently or in groups of 2-3.• Students will choose a geothermal area to research:

– Each individual/group will choose 1 area that interests them from a list of

geothermal areas found on the challenge webpage under the Areas tab.

– Registration for geothermal areas will be on a first-come first-serve basis, so don’t delay in choosing your area.

• Note: some geothermal areas have much more available information than others. This will be taken into account during judging.

• Case Studies are organized into three components:– Narratives– Exploration Activities– Data tables

• NREL has provided a template for each component of the case study; case studies should be prepared using the templates as working documents.


Scope of the Project (Narratives)

• The written narratives will constitute the bulk of the content produced for this project.

• There are three main topics that must be discussed in the narratives:– General Overview: history, development, permitting, environmental

issues, future plans, etc.– Technical Info: exploration history, well field description, research

and development, power plants, infrastructure, technical problems, etc.

– Geology: regional geology, tectonic setting, structure, stratigraphy, hydrothermal system, reservoir models, heat source, geochemistry, etc.

• Narratives should be thorough but concise.• Students should try to find information for as many of the

topics in the template as possible.


Scope of the Project (Exploration Activities)

• Students will complete a list of exploration activities in excel using the spreadsheet template provided.

• The goal is to include all documented geothermal exploration activities that have been conducted in your area.– The activities list should focus primarily on investigations that were

conducted for geothermal exploration or development.– Prior investigations conducted for other purposes do not need to be

included in the list, unless the information gained from those studies was later used for geothermal resource identification, evaluation, or development.

• The activities portion of this project is very important—companies and researchers will use the activities list in the future to learn which exploration practices have worked best in the past and which ones have not.


Scope of the Project (Data Tables)

• Data tables are include in the website so that specific data can be queried and searched by anyone researching different types of geothermal resources.

• The Data Tables spreadsheet template should be populated with as much information as possible.

• It may not be possible to fill out all sections of the Data Tables template, as some information may be proprietary or otherwise unavailable. This will be taken into account during judging.


OpenEI Geothermal Resource Area Example


Exploration Activity Page Example


Judging Criteria

• Formatting case studies and inputting the information into the OpenEI webpage will also be a part of the judging criteria:

– Finalized webpages should have a clean and organized appearance.– There should be no broken links.– Images and tables should display correctly.– All referenced information should cite the source material, and in-line citations should be properly

formatted for display on OpenEI.

• As with any research project, correct referencing is very important and will be a significant portion of the final evaluation.

• A grading rubric with detailed evaluation criteria is available on the challenge webpage.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HoldUpYourScore

• Projects will be judged based on:- How well researched the case

study is (Completeness/Focus)- How well written the final product is

(Conciseness/Clarity)- Quality of work- Organization




Important Deadlines

• Group registration 2/25/2014• Sign-ups for geothermal area of choice 2/29/2014• Reference list submission 4/20/2014 • Report submission to professor 5/1/2014• Professor scoring rubric submission

to NREL• Final report submission to NREL 5/15/2014• Case study uploaded to OpenEI 5/15/2014

These deadlines are the latest dates set by NREL—your professor may choose to adjust some deadlines to accommodate the class

schedule.

5/15/2014


Geothermal Case Study Challenge Winners

• The students/groups that produce the highest quality case studies will be awarded with paid travel to present their research in a special session at the 2014 annual GRC meeting in Portland Oregon, Sept 28th through Oct. 1st.

Documents

1 | US DOE Geothermal Officeeere.energy.gov Public Service of Colorado Ponnequin Wind Farm Geothermal Technologies Office 2014 Geothermal Case Studies