POWER May 2023 - 10

GLOBAL MONITOR
a result, many communities are shifting
their stance towards pro-development,
given we are still decades away from
full electrification. "
Hill continued, " According to IOGP
Europe, natural gas produced within the
European Union has a 30% smaller footprint
compared to when it is produced
outside the continent. Natural gas resource
development is timely, given the
urgent need, and is also a bridge for the
energy transition taking place in Europe.
We can expect growth in the area of natural
gas production to increase over the
next few years. "
-Darrell Proctor is a senior associate
editor for POWER.
Canada Starts Up First
Geothermal 'Co-Production' Power
Project at Active Legacy Oil Field
A pioneering 21-MW power project
that economically produces geothermal
power with co-produced hydrocarbon
fluids from an enhanced oil recovery
(EOR) operation is now commercially
operating in Alberta, Canada.
The South Swan Hills Geothermal Project
owned by Razor Energy Corp. subsidiary
FutEra Power began commercial
operations on March 22. Uniquely positioned
over a " hot spot " in the Western
Canadian Sedimentary Basin, the CA$49
million
project
harvests 84 producing
wells, which have the potential to deliver
up to 120,000 billion barrels a day of water
heated to between 90C and 100C. At least
14 of those wells are sited in the field at
depths of 2,500 meters (m) and have temperatures
of 100C, FutEra suggests.
The hot water is then gathered and
delivered to the South Swan Hills Geothermal
Project (Figure 3) via pipelines
of a combined 108 kilometers (km) in
length. At the plant, an Organic Rankine
Cycle (ORC) turbine, which began operations
in January 2023, captures the geothermal
heat from the production fluid.
A September 2022-installed 15-MW
natural gas turbine (NGT), meanwhile,
enhances the ORC working fluid temperature
to " optimize efficiency via exhaust
heat recovery, " FutEra said. In addition,
the project utilizes its waste heat to heat
the water back up to a " hot enough temperature "
and run a secondary generator
while at the same time cooling the
power plant.
The end result is an output of 21 MW
of power, roughly 30% of which is derived
from a renewable source. However,
the project provides Alberta with
baseload power. " Both the ORC and the
10
produced byproduct of the upstream oil
and gas production operation at Swan
Hills. Supporting the geothermal power
project's long-term viability, meanwhile,
is that 60 years of data suggest water
temperatures have remained hot enough
to generate power, it said.
" The reason that is important is be3.
Alberta-based oil and gas firm Razor Energy
in March 2023 began operation of a commercial-scale
project to produce economic
geothermal power with co-produced hydrocarbon
fluids in the South Swan Hills oil field
in Central Alberta. Courtesy: Razor Energy
NGT have grid interconnections, which
enable direct sales of electricity to the
Alberta electricity grid at merchant power
prices, " FutEra noted. While neither
the ORC or NGT are subject to hedging
for pricing or to commitments to any
level of power generation beyond voluntary
dispatch commitments, the NGT
and the ORC systems " have been running
in steady state while optimization
efforts are underway to get to design
capacity, " it said.
The project got its start in 2017 when
Razor Energy, a " junior " oil and gas
company based in Calgary,
Alberta,
saw a unique opportunity to enhance
its existing EOR operation at Swan
Hills. " Legacy oil and gas fields in Alberta,
and globally, face challenges with
lower production levels and high fixed
costs, " the company noted. " However,
these fields also have practical advantages
when considering the existing
infrastructure, reservoir characteristics,
wells, and operational footprints. "
While Swan Hills-one of the largest
oil and gas reservoirs discovered in
Alberta-has produced light oil since
1960, its reservoir had been slowly depleted
and replaced with water as part
of a secondary oil recovery technique.
" The Swan Hills region is now in the late
stages of its lifecycle, so what typically
happens is people will inject water pressure
into the reservoir to try and drive
the remaining hydrocarbons out of it. A
consequence of doing that is the water
heats up and is then reproduced with the
hydrocarbon, " said Jonathan Banks, director
of Geothermal Energy and Development
with the University of Alberta's
Future Energy Systems program.
Razor Energy saw a crucial source of
untapped value in the large volumes of
hot production fluids harvested as a cowww.powermag.com
cause
it's called security of supply. In geothermal
that matters a lot because you've
de-risked your source significantly, " noted
Lisa Mueller, president and CEO for
FutEra Power. " There's billions of barrels
of fluids in place and on an annualized basis
with this project we're only attempting
to replace 2% to 3% of the overall volume
of the reservoir, " she added.
As a significant benefit to project economics,
the plant utilizes co-production.
" Co-production means no new surface
land footprint is required as the project
utilizes existing assets such as processing
infrastructure, producing wells, produced
water reinjection system, and an operating
gathering and distribution system, "
FutEra explained. " Using existing assets
yield cumulative, and substantive, effects
of reducing typical geothermal project
capital outlay, improving security of heat
supply, and improving economic returns. "
The company suggested the co-production
approach could also allow Alberta's
" fledgling geothermal industry " to
thrive alongside its " world-class oil and
gas operations, safety standards, and
regulatory best practices. " While Razor
Energy noted the project " stands out as
a demonstration of creative and practical
co-produced geothermal energy
production, " it suggests the approach
could be applied anywhere oil and gas
is produced.
South Swan Hills notably operates under
a dedicated geothermal facility lease-the
first of its kind. And while the pilot project
was privately financed by Razor and Arena
Investors, a U.S.-based institutional asset
manager, it received substantial backing
from the Canadian government. Grants
include CA$7.75 million under Natural Resource
Canada's Clean Growth Program,
a separate CA$2 million contribution from
Alberta Innovates, and CA$10 million from
Emissions Reduction Alberta, which supports
climate technology innovation within
the province.
By 2019, two years after the project
was first publicly unveiled, Razor Energy
had completed the plant's engineering
design, and it had wrapped up its
full regulatory review and stakeholder
engagement processes. The project received
the Alberta Utilities Commission's
POWER | May 2023
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POWER May 2023

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