Estimating the influence of filtering during the operation of the Pauzhetka and Mutnovskii high-temperature geothermal fields, Kamchatka, Russia

It is shown that the productive reservoir received considerable quantities of meteoric water during the operation of the Pauzhetka geothermal field (1960–2007), which amounted to 30% of the total with-drawal of heat carrier. This led to cooling of the productive reservoir and reduced steam extraction. Modeling the operation process with the infiltration zones sealed shows that steam extraction can be enhanced by 23.2%. Multi-option modeling for the operation of the Dachnyi site of the Mutnovskii geothermal field shows that the most-likely scenario is infiltration of meteoric water with a discharge of about 60 kg/s into the productive reservoir from above. These results are consistent with the decrease in the steam concentration during the first 4 years of operation.