Kagan Kutun joined NREL in 2022 and is a postdoctoral researcher on geothermal reservoir engineering in the Thermal Energy Science and Technologies Research Group. His current research at NREL focuses on the reservoir and heat flow modeling aspects of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) and geothermal coproduction at legacy oil and gas fields. Additionally, he performs research on modeling of ground source heat pump systems and urban deep direct use geothermal resources. He has extensive industry and research experience in reservoir and hydraulic stimulation numerical modeling. He was involved with the U.S. Department of Energy EGS Collab project during his studies. He currently also holds a part-time research associate position at Colorado School of Mines.

Research Interests

Reservoir and hydraulic stimulation modeling

Wellbore heat transfer

Enhanced geothermal systems

Ground source heat pump system design and modeling

Distributed fiber optic sensing

High performance computing

Education

Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

M.S., Petroleum Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, Istanbul Technical University

Featured Work

Measurement Environment's Effect on DTS Surveys: A Case Study on Fiber Cable-Wellbore Coupling, Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (2021)

Hydraulic Fracture Modeling in Support of EGS Collab Treatment Designs, U.S. Rock Mechanics/Geomechanics Symposium (2018)

Analysis of Wellhead Production Temperature Derivatives, Geothermal Reservoir Engineering Workshop (2015)