When a warm well located downgradient is captured by cold thermal plume originated from an upgradient cold well, the warm thermal plume is pushed further downgradient in the direction of groundwater flow. If groundwater flow direction is parallel to an aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), the warm well can no longer be utilized as a heat source during the winter season because of the reduced heat capacity of the warm groundwater. It has been found that when the specific discharge is increased by $1{\times}10^{-7}m/s$ in this situation, the performance of ATES is decreased by approximately 2.9% in the warm thermal plume, and approximately 6.5% in the cold thermal plume. An increase of the specific discharge in a permeable hydrogeothermal system with a relatively large hydraulic gradient creates serious thermal interferences between warm and cold thermal plumes. Therefore, an area comprising a permeable aquifer system with large hydraulic gradient should not be used for ATES site. In case of ATES located perpendicular to groundwater flow, when the specific discharge is increased by $1{\times}10^{-7}m/s$ in the warm thermal plume, the performance of ATES is decreased by about 2.5%. This is 13.8% less reduced performance than the parallel case, indicating that an increase of groundwater flow tends to decrease the thermal interference between cold and warm wells. The system performance of ATES that is perpendicular to groundwater flow is much better than that of parallel ATES.

Keywords: Aquifer thermal energy storage;Warm well;Cold well;Free cold;Local groundwater temperature;