SUTRA Models Used to Evaluate Reservoir Thermal Energy Storage Performance in the United States

This data release documents eight 30-year SUTRA simulations summarized in Pepin and others (2025) and provides output from one short (1-year) simulation to provide verification that the model code runs properly. The most recent, but not-yet published, version of SUTRA (version 4.0) was used to evaluate reservoir thermal energy storage performance by simulating radially symmetric groundwater and heat transport for layered systems in the following eight metropolitan area cities: Albuquerque, New Mexico; Charleston, South Carolina; Chicago and Decatur, Illinois; Lansing, Michigan; Memphis, Tennessee; Phoenix, Arizona; and Portland, Oregon. This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release contains the input and output files for those simulations described in Pepin and others (2025). The SUTRA (version 4.0) executable and Python script needed to run the simulations are currently only made available to USGS users (see child item) because the required supporting documentation for public release has not yet been published. Users are encouraged to review Pepin and others (2025) to understand the purpose and limitations of this model.

Associated publication:
Pepin, J.D., Burns, E.R., Cahalan, R.C., Hayba, D.O., Dickinson, J.E., Duncan, L.L., and Kuniansky, E.L., 2025, Reservoir Thermal Energy Storage Pre-Assessment for the United States: Geothermics, v. 129, no. 103256, 18 p., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2025.103256.