When captured CO2 is stored in underground reservoirs it must be guaranteed that it stays contained in the underground. Therefore, an effective monitoring tool is necessary to ensure safe and efficient CO2 storage.
With financing from Innovation Fund Denmark, DTU Offshore is starting work to develop a unique solution to this challenge. The research centre will use artificial intelligence to develop a software solution for automated and continuous monitoring of containment and field specific surveillance strategies.
The new monitoring solution will be developed in cooperation between DTU Offshore, TotalEnergies, and Nordsøfonden under the project name ‘Cerberus’.
Based on many years of experience in studying processes in the deep subsurface environments, Cerberus’s participants will develop an AI-powered software solution that can detect not only potential leaks in real time but also the root cause of them.
A safe, fast, and cost-effective solution
The existing traditional monitoring technologies, such as conventional 4D seismic surveys, are time-consuming and expensive. Hence, it is not realistic to expect them to be performed regularly to be able to quickly detect a possible leak. By integrating all available data (and reservoir models), Cerberus will enable real-time continuous monitoring in a more cost-effective way, thus providing a guarantee for long-term safety of underground CO2 storage.
As a research and technology center at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), DTU Offshore will combine their knowledge with the experience of the experts from TotalEnergies and Nordsøfonden to develop Cerberus:
“It is crucial to secure the accuracy of the monitoring. The software tool developed in Cerberus will be validated against field data and high-fidelity simulations from depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs in the Danish North Sea, which are repurposed for underground CO2 storage”, says Hamid Nick, Senior Researcher at DTU Offshore and Technical Project Leader of Cerberus.
In demand by underground CO2 storage operators
“Cerberus may potentially contribute to making geological CO2 storage in the Danish reservoirs under the North Sea attractive for operators and in the longer term affordable to customers among CO2 emitters. With a digitalised solution based on open-source software, Cerberus has potential for application in Denmark, the North Sea and globally,“ Ingelise Schmidt, Subsurface Asset Coordinator CCS, TotalEnergies, says.
In the Greek mythology, Cerberus is the three-headed guardian of the underworld. In the same way, the Cerberus project will provide CO2 storage operators with a safer, faster, and more cost-effective AI-powered gate-keeper tool for monitoring CO2 in the subsurface.
