Geothermal Energy Potential Within the Los Angeles Basin and Its Co-Location With Solar and Wind Renewable Energy Resources

Glassley, William E. and Brown, Elise
[email protected]

Interest in the use of geothermal fluids, in the form of oil field brines, to generate power has become of increasing interest as binary power generation technology has improved. We undertook an evaluation of the suitability of the oil pools in the Los Angeles Basin for power generation using this technology. Using the California Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) database of all wells within the District 1 area, we identified those wells for which geopressured conditions existed and temperatures were sufficiently high to allow reasonable power generation potential. We examined the records of 29,156 wells. We considered the temperature and pressure values at known depths in reservoirs for individual pools. Fifteen pools were identified that have good potential for geothermal power generation. Of these, three are also geopressured. These resources are co-located with identified wind- and solar-resource sites. We describe in this presentation the characteristics of the sites with significant geothermal potential, as well as the magnitude of the co-located wind- and solar-resources. We discuss the potential for developing distributed generation capabilities in this region, and the implications for supporting California’s distributed generation mandate and its community choice aggregation program.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90162©2013 Pacific Section AAPG, SPE and SEPM Joint Technical Conference, Monterey, California, April 19-25, 2013