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regenerate (WIP - temporary results with lowered gringarten-stehfest precision)
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tests/examples/Fervo_Project_Cape-4.txt

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tests/examples/Fervo_Project_Cape-5.out

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Simulation Metadata
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GEOPHIRES Version: 3.10.25
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Simulation Date: 2026-01-12
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Simulation Time: 16:07
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Calculation Time: 1.943 sec
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Simulation Date: 2026-01-13
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Simulation Time: 11:00
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Calculation Time: 1.770 sec
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***SUMMARY OF RESULTS***
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tests/examples/Fervo_Project_Cape-6.out

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# Case Study: 100 MWe EGS Project Modeled on Fervo Cape Station Phase I
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# See documentation: https://softwareengineerprogrammer.github.io/GEOPHIRES/Fervo_Project_Cape-4.html
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# *** ECONOMIC/FINANCIAL PARAMETERS ***
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# *************************************
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Economic Model, 5, -- The SAM Single Owner PPA economic model is used to calculate financial results including LCOE, NPV, IRR, and pro-forma cash flow analysis. See [GEOPHIRES documentation of SAM Economic Models](https://softwareengineerprogrammer.github.io/GEOPHIRES/SAM-Economic-Models.html) for details on how System Advisor Model financial models are integrated into GEOPHIRES.
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Starting Electricity Sale Price, 0.095, -- Aligns with Geysers - Sacramento pricing in [2024b ATB](https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2024/geothermal) (NREL, 2025). See Sensitivity Analysis for effect of different prices on results.
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Electricity Escalation Rate Per Year, 0.00057, -- Calibrated to reach 10¢/kWh at project year 11
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Ending Electricity Sale Price, 1, -- Note that this value does not directly determine price at the end of the project life, but rather as a cap as the maximum price to which the starting price can escalate.
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Electricity Escalation Start Year, 1
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Discount Rate, 0.12, -- Typical discount rates for high-risk projects may be 12–15%
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Fraction of Investment in Bonds, .65, -- Approximate debt required to cover CAPEX after $1 billion sponsor equity per [Matson, 2024](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fervo-energy-technology-day-2024-entering-geothermal-decade-matson-n4stc/). Note that this source says that Fervo ultimately wants to target “15% sponsor equity, 15% bridge loan, and 70% construction to term loans”, but this case study does not attempt to model that capital structure precisely.
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Inflated Bond Interest Rate, .08, -- Higher than typical debt annual interest rate
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Inflated Bond Interest Rate During Construction, 0.1, -- Higher interest rate during construction to account for increased risk of default.
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Inflation Rate, .027, -- US inflation as of December 2025
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Construction Years, 3
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Construction CAPEX Schedule, 0.014,0.027,0.137,0.274,0.548
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Investment Tax Credit Rate, 0.3, -- Geothermal Drilling and Completions Apprenticeship Program ensures compliance with ITC labor requirements (Southern Utah University, 2024).
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Combined Income Tax Rate, .2555, -- Federal Corporate Income Tax Rate of 21% plus Utah Corporate Franchise and Income Tax Rate of 4.55%. (Note: This input uses a simple summation of statutory rates; the effective combined rate calculated in the model may differ due to standard federal-state tax interactions.)
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Property Tax Rate, 0.0022, -- Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) tax differential incentive
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Capital Cost for Power Plant for Electricity Generation, 1900, -- [US DOE, 2021](https://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/Waste_Heat_to_Power_Fact_Sheet.pdf). Pricing information not publicly available for Turboden or Baker Hughes Gen 2 ORC units (Turboden, 2025; Jacobs, 2025).
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Exploration Capital Cost, 30, -- Equivalent to 2024b ATB NF-EGS conservative scenario exploration assumption of 5 full-size wells (NREL, 2025), plus $1M for geophysical and field work, plus 15% contingency, plus 12% indirect costs.
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Well Drilling Cost Correlation, 3, -- 2025 NREL Geothermal Drilling Cost Curve Update (Akindipe and Witter, 2025).
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Well Drilling and Completion Capital Cost Adjustment Factor, 0.9, -- 2024b Geothermal ATB ([NREL, 2025](https://atb.nrel.gov/electricity/2024b/geothermal)). Note: Fervo has claimed lower drilling costs equivalent to an adjustment factor of 0.8 (Latimer, 2025); the case study conservatively uses the higher ATB-aligned value.
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Reservoir Stimulation Capital Cost per Injection Well, 4, -- The baseline stimulation cost is calibrated from costs of high-intensity U.S. shale wells (Baytex Energy, 2024; Quantum Proppant Technologies, 2020), which are the closest technological analogue for multi-stage EGS (Gradl, 2018). Costs are also driven by the requirement for high-strength ceramic proppant rather than standard sand, which would crush or chemically degrade (diagenesis) over a 30-year lifecycle at 200℃ (Ko et al., 2023; Shiozawa & McClure, 2014) and the premium for ultra-high-temperature (HT) downhole tools. Note that all-in costs per well are higher than the baseline cost because they include additional indirect costs and contingency.
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Reservoir Stimulation Capital Cost per Production Well, 4, -- See Reservoir Stimulation Capital Cost per Injection Well
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Field Gathering System Capital Cost Adjustment Factor, 0.54, -- Gathering costs represent 2% of facilities CAPEX per [Matson, 2024](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fervo-energy-technology-day-2024-entering-geothermal-decade-matson-n4stc/).
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# *** SURFACE & SUBSURFACE TECHNICAL PARAMETERS ***
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# *************************************************
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End-Use Option, 1, -- Electricity
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Power Plant Type, 2, -- Supercritical ORC
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Plant Lifetime, 30, -- 30-year well life per [Geothermal Mythbusting: Water Use and Impacts](https://fervoenergy.com/geothermal-mythbusting-water-use-and-impacts/) (Fervo Energy, 2025).
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Reservoir Model, 1
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Surface Temperature, 13, -- Surface temperature near Milford, UT (38.4987670, -112.9163432) ([Project InnerSpace, 2025](https://geomap.projectinnerspace.org/test/)).
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Number of Segments, 1
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Gradient 1, 74, -- 200℃ at 8500 ft depth (Fercho et al. 2024); 228.89℃ at 9824 ft (Norbeck et al. 2024).
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Reservoir Depth, 2.68, -- Extrapolated from surface temperature, gradient, and average production temperature of shallower and deeper producers in Singh et al., 2025.
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Reservoir Density, 2800, -- phyllite + quartzite + diorite + granodiorite ([Norbeck et al., 2023](https://doi.org/10.31223/X52X0B))
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Reservoir Heat Capacity, 790
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Reservoir Thermal Conductivity, 3.05
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Reservoir Porosity, 0.0118
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Reservoir Volume Option, 1, -- FRAC_NUM_SEP: Reservoir volume calculated with fracture separation and number of fractures as input
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Number of Fractures per Stimulated Well, 150, -- The model assumes an Extreme Limited Entry stimulation design (Fervo Energy, 2023) utilizing 12 stages with 15 clusters per stage (derived from Singh et al., 2025) and 81–85% stimulation success rate per 2024b ATB Moderate Scenario (NREL, 2025).
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Fracture Separation, 9.14, -- 30 foot cluster spacing per [Singh et al., 2025](https://www.resfrac.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Singh-2025-Fervo-Project-Cape.pdf)
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Fracture Shape, 4, -- Bench design and fracture geometry Singh et al., 2025 are given in rectangular dimensions.
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Fracture Width, 304.8, -- Matches intra-bench well spacing of 500 ft (corresponding to fracture length of 1000 ft) (Singh. et al., 2025)
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Fracture Height, 135, -- Actual fracture geometry is irregular and heterogeneous; this height complies with the minimum height required by the implemented bench design (200 ft; 60.96 meters) and yields an effective fracture surface area consistent with simulation results in Singh. et al., 2025.
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Water Loss Fraction, 0.01, -- "Long-term modeling, calibrated to early field data, predicts circulation recapture rates exceeding 99%" ([Geothermal Mythbusting: Water Use and Impacts](https://fervoenergy.com/geothermal-mythbusting-water-use-and-impacts/); Fervo Energy, 2025). Modeling in Singh et al., 2025 predicts fluid loss of 0.36% to 0.49%.
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Water Cost Adjustment Factor, 2, -- Local scarcity may increase procurement costs
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Ambient Temperature, 11.17, -- Average annual temperature of Milford, Utah ([NCEI](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset=normals-annualseasonal&timeframe=30&station=USC00425654)). Note that this value affects heat to power conversion efficiency. The effects of hourly and seasonal ambient temperature fluctuations on efficiency and power generation are not modeled in this version of the case study.
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Utilization Factor, .9
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Plant Outlet Pressure, 2000 psi, -- McClure, 2024; Singh et al., 2025.
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Circulation Pump Efficiency, 0.80
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# *** Well Bores Parameters ***
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Number of Production Wells, 13
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Number of Injection Wells per Production Well, 0.666, -- 5-well benches with 3:2 production:injection ratio (Singh et al., 2025)
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# Well Geometry Configuration, 4, -- L
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Number of Multilateral Sections, 0, -- This parameter is set to 0 because, for this case study, the cost of horizontal drilling is included within the 'vertical drilling cost.' This approach allows us to more directly convey the overall well drilling and completion cost.
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Nonvertical Length per Multilateral Section, 4700 feet, -- [Singh et al., 2025](https://www.resfrac.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Singh-2025-Fervo-Project-Cape.pdf).
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# Multilaterals Cased, True
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Production Flow Rate per Well, 110, -- Cape Station pilot testing reported a sustained flow rate of 95–100 kg/s and maximum flow rate of 107 kg/s (Fervo Energy, 2024). Modeling by Singh et al. suggests initial flow rates of 120–130 kg/sec (Singh et al., 2025). The ATB Advanced Scenario models sustained flow rates of 110 kg/s (NREL, 2024).
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Production Well Diameter, 8.535, -- Inner diameter of 9⅝ inch casing size, the next standard casing size up from 7 inches, implied by announcement of “increasing casing diameter” (Fervo Energy, 2025).
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Injection Well Diameter, 8.535, -- See Production Well Diameter
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Production Wellhead Pressure, 300 psi, -- [Singh et al., 2025](https://www.resfrac.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Singh-2025-Fervo-Project-Cape.pdf)
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Productivity Index, 1.247, -- 50% of ATB Conservative Scenario (NREL, 2025) per analyses that suggest lower productivity (Xing et al., 2025; Yearsley and Kombrink, 2024).
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Injectivity Index, 1.5075, -- See Productivity Index
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Injection Temperature, 53.6, -- Calibrated with GEOPHIRES model-calculated reinjection temperature (Beckers and McCabe, 2019). Close to upper bound of Project Red injection temperatures (75–125℉; 23.89–51.67℃) (Norbeck and Latimer, 2023).
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Ramey Production Wellbore Model, True, -- Ramey's model estimates the geofluid temperature drop in production wells
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Injection Wellbore Temperature Gain, 3
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Maximum Drawdown, 0.003, -- This value represents the drop in production temperature compared to the initial temperature that is allowed before the wellfield is redrilled. It is tuned to keep minimum net electricity generation over the project lifetime ≥100 MWe.
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# *** SIMULATION PARAMETERS ***
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# *****************************
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Maximum Temperature, 500
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Time steps per year, 12

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