Lucid Energy, a provider of renewable energy systems and developer of in-pipe hydropower, announced the commercial availability of the LucidPipe Power System. This new renewable energy system enables large users of energy and water–-such as municipal water and wastewater, agricultural and industrial facilities–-to produce clean, reliable, low-cost electricity from their water pipelines. On April 26, the company will celebrate the completion of the first commercial LucidPipe installation and the opening of the first Lucid Energy Center of Excellence in Riverside, Calif., where the technology has been piloted for the past two years. Centers of Excellence are also being developed in Texas and New York to demonstrate the in-pipe hydropower technology.
Lucid Energy’s LucidPipe Power System, which was developed in conjunction with Northwest Pipe Co., is a patented, vertical-axis, spherical turbine that captures energy from fast-moving water inside of large, gravity-fed water and effluent pipelines, without impacting operations. Lucid Energy is actively working with Energy Services Companies (ESCOs) and other partners, including CH2M Hill, Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell and Northwest Pipe Co. to commercialize and deploy the technology across North America and around the world.
CH2M Hill is currently working with Lucid Energy and the Portland Water Bureau in Portland, Ore. on three new LucidPipe installations that will provide enough energy to power up to 200-300 homes in the city over the next year.
The company has received inquiries from a number of municipal water districts around the country since the pilot of the LucidPipe system at Riverside Public Utilities was awarded a 2011 Outstanding Energy Management Award by the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Assn. last October. In addition to the commercial projects in Riverside, Ore. and Portland, Lucid Energy and its partners are now in discussions with other municipalities including Dallas and San Antonio, Texas; Albany, N.Y. and New York City and Toronto, Ontario, Canada to deploy the LucidPipe Power System over the next year.
“Portland has a longstanding reputation for green innovation and being a leader in smart infrastructure,” said Mayor Sam Adams of the city of Portland, Oregon. “We are proud to have Lucid Energy as part our ecosystem of leading renewable energy companies. Like all communities, we need to continue to contain our energy costs and maintain the quality of our water infrastructure; the LucidPipe Power System provides an excellent way for us to benefit by reducing our operating costs and even potentially generate additional revenue without raising rates for our citizens.”
“Over the past 10 years, we’ve all been made aware of how important energy is to our lives; but now the world is waking up to the fact that it takes a lot of energy to produce and deliver clean water and a lot of water to produce energy,” said Gregg Semler, president and CEO of Lucid Energy Inc. “The nexus of energy and water is very important to the ongoing security of any economy in the world. Lucid Energy has been developing and testing the LucidPipe Power System since 2007 and we are excited by the market’s interest in producing energy from a natural source of energy embedded in their water infrastructure,” Semler said. “It’s amazing to see how large infrastructure companies like our partners at CH2M Hill, Siemens, Honeywell and Johnson Controls are taking their expertise in energy infrastructure and focusing on the water sector.”
