Navigating erupting volcanoes is all in a day’s work for Vice President of Exploration and Resource Management, Simon Webbison. Webbison works at Ormat Technologies, a world-leading geothermal company that relies on data-driven insights to better understand the complex geology of renewable resources.
Geothermal energy is an integral part of the transition towards net zero. It has a much lower environmental impact than conventional sources, such as fuel or oil.
While unlocking sustainable energy sources from the world’s geothermal hot spots can be complex, Ormat’s expertise is helping bring reliable, sustainable energy options around the globe.
“Our work is challenging, but highly rewarding and that’s what motivates our world-class team and me personally,” Webbison says.
In May 2018, Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano erupted, burying roadways and forcing two thousand residents to evacuate.
Subsequent lava flow caused Ormat’s Puna Geothermal Venture 38-megawatt (MW) power plant, located in Hawaii’s East Rift Zone, to temporarily shut down.
“We had to turn the power plant off for a period to make things safe,” Webbison says.
“Seequent’s Leapfrog Energy gave us a much better understanding of the characteristics and behaviour of the subsurface both during the eruption and following it, ultimately helping to get the facility back up and running as quickly as possible.”
Ormat’s Puna geothermal power plant, during the May 2018 eruption of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii
Bringing global teams together with the power of a fast and agile workflow
Ormat operates in six countries and is across 25 geothermal resources with an extensive exploration portfolio of over 40 prospects.
“We’re a big global player in the geothermal energy technology field having built over 190 power plants with an installed combined capacity of over 3,200 MW of renewable electric energy,” Webbison says.
Currently, their 995 MW geothermal generating portfolio spans the United States, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, Honduras, Indonesia and Kenya.
“Our focus helps transition electricity markets to more sustainable options, such as in Hawaii, and we are also actively growing in energy storage and solar power – which is an exciting place to be,” explains Webbison. .
But it doesn’t stop there. A big challenge for their technical teams is how to standardise workflows across multiple locations and time zones.
“How do we turn the mosaic of data coming in from all of our many projects into consistent data in the office for a more holistic global view?” Webbison asks. .
The answer for Ormat is Leapfrog Energy.
Using Leapfrog Energy as part of their workflow has helped standardise their approach, allowing the team to easily transform complex resource and reservoir data into 3D conceptual models that help to quickly inform crucial decisions. .
“Being able to visualise all of our different data together in one place means that stakeholders can clearly see, understand and collaborate on all our latest information,” he says.
Leapfrog Energy gave data-driven subsurface insights to help get the facility back up and running as quickly as possible
Data-driven 3D models to better inform optimum well design
Ormat is a story about growth, and like every company on a high growth trajectory – there are hurdles between the sprints.
Several recent exploration projects have focused on developing lower-temperature geothermal resources.
“We’re exploring and drilling in a lot of places, and often dealing with varying degrees of subsurface uncertainty and so we sometimes need to make crucial decisions on the fly,”says Webbison.
“With innovations that combine binary power plant technology and line-shaft pumps, we’ve been able to develop new geothermal systems,” he explains.
“But because we’re exploring fields and designing wells that need to be pumped, we have different considerations than geothermal developers did in the past.”
Designing wells for line shaft pumps that can move high volumes of fluid can often require a kick-off point deeper than wells that use submersible pumps.
The challenge is how to collate this new information in a succinct time frame to allow for good design. This needs to be done ahead of drilling to enable fast decision-making without drilling rig wait time, which can cost a lot of money.
“Leapfrog Energy has made a significant difference for us in this regard,” says Webbison.
”We can efficiently integrate our multidisciplinary data into 3D visualisations that better inform our optimum well design, factoring in things such as kick-off point depth decisions.
“Also, we can link geothermal conceptual models more seamlessly into our numerical models – which are our predictive tools,” he says.
Ultimately, this helps Ormat make more meaningful predictions of geothermal resource behaviour – something that is really important from a sustainability perspective.
An example 3D model of a Synthetic Geothermal System created in Leapfrog Energy to show the geology, temperature, wells with casing designs and feed zones.
Attracting fresh talent with state-of-the-art tech
With 1400 employees worldwide, Ormat works fast to upskill new people who join their team.
“Leapfrog Energy is the industry standard software and pivotal to how we do business,” Webbison says.
“We’re expanding fast and to execute, on exploration campaigns have had to onboard a lot of people pronto, especially recently in the United States and Indonesia where our Geothermal Resources teams are based.”
Even better, Webbison finds new recruits from within the geothermal industry are already familiar with the Leapfrog product suite.
“And even if they’re not, it’s quick to learn, user friendly and there’s good support so we’re able to rapidly get our teams up to speed and working efficiently on the tools.”
Ormat has a great track record with Seequent and appreciates the importance of working in partnership to come up with innovative solutions.
“Seequent listens to our feedback and turns it into product enhancements that enable us to do our job better, move at a faster pace and help meet our objectives.”.
“Bringing in time-lapse drilling data, for example, has allowed us to optimise our knowledge of the well bore,” he says.
“And if things pop up while we’re drilling, we can make faster decisions on how to best progress the project.”