City to harvest energy from water pipes
2 Jan 2013
Portland, Oregon – Lucid Energy, a company pioneering the development of in-pipe hydropower, is to construct a system to harvest electricity from gravity-fed water pipes in its home city Portland.
Under a deal with Portland Water Bureau, the LucidPipe power system will be installed in a section of large-diameter, gravity-fed water pipeline beneath the city.
The energy system uses an in-conduit turbine that spins as water passes through it. This, claims the developer, can produce clean, reliable, low-cost electricity with no impact on the environment or water delivery.
The project is intended to support a city plan to install at least 10MW of on-site renewable energy. The installation is slated for completion in June 2013 and, once completed, will produce enough electricity to power around 150 homes.
“Water and energy are closely linked; it takes a lot of electricity to deliver safe, clean drinking water,” said David Shaff, Portland Water Bureau administrator.
“The LucidPipe system provides a new way for us, as a water bureau, to generate electricity from our biggest asset and reduce the cost of delivery for our customers,” he added.
Lucid Energy, which was formed in 2007, has a strategic relationship with Northwest Pipe Co., the largest manufacturer of steel water transmission pipe in the US. The two companies collaborated on the development of the lift-based turbine design that is the basis of the in-pipe hydropower system.
The in-pipe hydropower system is being targeted at large water users such as municipal water and wastewater systems, agriculture irrigation districts and water-intensive industries.
Compared to other renewable technologies, the energy output is said to be more consistent, predictable and not subject to weather conditions.
Portland’s in-pipe hydropower system will be the second major LucidPipe installation. The company has also announced the installation of its power system in Riverside, California and is planing another installation in San Antonio, Texas in early 2013.
Gregg Semler, president and CEO of Lucid Energy Inc., added: “We’re seeing a lot of interest in our product from communities and water utilities around the world, so it’s exciting that Portland will be among the first to complete an installation.”
LucidPipe can operate across a wide range of flow conditions, volumes and velocities. The unique lift-based vertical axis spherical turbine design of LucidPipe generates electricity by extracting excess head pressure from large diameter (24”-96”), gravity-fed water pipelines and effluent streams.
To maximise electricity generation, several LucidPipe systems can be rapidly and easily installed into a single pipeline, enabling operations to continue normally.
The amount of electricity generated is a function of the rate of flow and the pressure inside the transmission pipe.
For example, in a standard 60-inch-diameter pipeline, with flow velocity of seven feet per second and 92.3 ft of head (40 psi) of excess head pressure, a single unit could produce up to 100kW of power while extracting about 11.5 ft of head (5 PSI) from the system.
Adding multiple turbines in a pipeline with these characteristics has the potential to generate thousands of megawatt hours of renewable energy without environmental impact.
Systems can be deployed 3-4 turbine diameters apart, so up to four LucidPipe units can be installed in a standard 40-foot section of pipe. One mile of 42” diameter pipeline could produce as much as 3 megawatts or more of electricity.
