Wireless Telemetry System for Long-term Real-time Subsurface Monitoring

Abstract

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an effective technique to mitigate the global climate change by storing the CO2 underground permanently. Therefore, the techniques to monitoring the CO2 sequestration status and the potential leakage are crucial. In this paper, a novel real-time underground monitoring and wireless communication system has been developed. The system will include an array of toroidal transceivers winding around the highly conductive casing string for wireless data transfer between surface and deep subsurface, and energized casing technique is utilized to charge the toroidal transceivers and subsurface sensors. This novel wireless telemetry system will help to maintain well integrity and reduce potential leakage by eliminating the needs for perforated casing or an umbilical in the cement annulus since no direct path of fluid leakage is induced by this wireless system. The wireless signal and energy transfer rate are both enhanced significantly by the metal casing amplification. The available bandwidth and the corresponded channel capacity are calculated based on numerical simulation.