LucidEnergy, a Portland, Oregon-based startup that launched in 2007, has devised a system to get hydroelectric power from city water supply pipes. A pilot project in Riverside, California is in operation and now a full scale project is beginning with the city of Portland, Oregon.<\/p>\n
![\"LucidPipe](\"http:\/\/solarlove.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LucidPipe1-270x152.jpg\")
Gregg Semler, president and CEO of LucidEnergy, said his team originally was looking for ways to capture energy from streams. But they soon realized it is difficult to predict the flow of a stream and generating hydropower could be environmentally degrading.<\/p>\n
Water pipes don\u2019t present any concerns abut the \u00a0environment and they have a\u00a0fairly consistent flow of energy.\u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s really interesting about Lucid is this is a new source of energy that\u2019s never really been tapped into before,\u201d Semler said. \u201cYou take the best of hydroelectricity and put it in the pipe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even in drought conditions, such as California is experiencing now, delivery of drinking water in city water systems remains relatively constant.\u00a0\u201cWe are less vulnerable to variations in the ability to generate this type of hydropower than we are with projects with large dams that need to be full,\u201d says Laura Wisland, senior energy analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists. \u201cI live in California, and we\u2019re having a drought, and our ability to develop hydropower is much more limited than it has been in the past. I don\u2019t think you\u2019d see the same level of variability with this type of hydro power; there\u2019s a more constant supply of power.\u201d<\/p>\n
LucidEnergy tested out the project in Riverside with funding from the Department of Energy. Semler said he targeted Riverside because he knew the city was \u201creally progressive in terms of energy efficiency.\u00a0We went to them, and they liked the idea. It was a relationship right off the bat,\u201d he said.\u00a0In Riverside, the electricity generated from the pipes is used to power street lights. The Portland project is much larger and is expected to produce\u00a01,100 megawatt-hours of electricity a year. That\u2019s enough for about 150 homes.<\/p>\n
The system is installed in 50 feet of Portland water pipes, in sections where the water flows downward due to gravity. There are four sections of pipe, and each has a generator on top and a 42-inch turbine that spins as the water flows inside. According to the company, up to four units of the so-called LucidPipe can be installed \u201cin a standard 40-foot\u201d section of water pipe, and one mile of 42-inch diameter pipeline has the potential to produce more than 3 megawatts of electricity Many cities around the world are dealing with aging infrastructure and facing questions about how to replace it, said Amy Nagy, business development coordinator at the Portland Development Commission, which worked with Lucid to get the project off the ground in Portland. As cities go through and make improvements to their infrastructure, she said, they should be looking into whether they could get a dual purpose out of it.\u00a0\u201cWater pipes deliver clean water, and LucidPipe adds an additional benefit of clean energy production, and producing revenue that the city can go back and reinvest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Semler is already looking at expanding the system to other cities. Johannesburg, South Africa announced earlier this year that it would be employing the technology in its water system. And Semler said he\u2019s gotten interest from cities in China, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico. A city interested in LucidPipe must first agree to adopt the system, and then go about securing private capital.<\/p>\n![\"LucidPipe](\"http:\/\/solarlove.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/LucidPipe-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nIn Portland, the turbines were installed by replacing a section of existing pipe with Lucid\u2019s pipe, and bolting that new pipe to the existing water system in a process \u201csort of like Legos,\u201d Semler said. But he also said there is a market for the technology in cities that are building new water networks where new sections of pipe could incorporate Lucid technology, according to Think Progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n