A decision about the size of a geothermal power plant generally needs to be made at an early stage of development, i.e. when only rough data are available about the size and characteristics of the reservoir. At this stage it can be of value, both for investors and developers, to have a tool that can assist in choosing a sensible option for the plant size while accounting for major resource and economic parameters involved.

This article presents a mathematical framework aimed at answering questions about how to best utilize a geothermal resource for power production under various market conditions. The framework has economic parameters coupled with an energy balance model for a geothermal resource, by means of a constrained optimization problem. The optimal development strategy is thus dependent on a few key economic parameters for the project (power price, well cost, power plant cost, etc.) and major characteristics of the reservoir (average well power, initial resource capacity and recharge).

通常需要在开发的早期阶段就决定地热发电厂的规模，即只有关于水库大小和特征的粗略数据可用时才做出决定。在现阶段，对于投资者和开发商而言，拥有一种可以在考虑所涉及的主要资源和经济参数的同时，协助选择适合工厂规模的明智选择的工具可能是有价值的。

本文提出了一个数学框架，旨在回答有关如何在各种市场条件下最佳利用地热资源发电的问题。该框架通过约束优化问题，结合了经济参数和地热资源的能量平衡模型。因此，最佳的开发策略取决于项目的一些关键经济参数（电价，油井成本，电厂成本等）和水库的主要特征（平均油井功率，初始资源容量和补给量）。