Lucid Energy: hydropower that doesn’t harm ecosystems. The LucidPipe Power system converts excess pressure inside gravity-fed municipal water pipelines into carbon-free, renewable energy — without disrupting water delivery or the environment.
source/image(PrtSc): Lucid Energy
How it works: Water from snow and rainfall fills remote, high-elevation reservoirs, feeding pipelines that move water to the point-of-use. As the water flows downhill, gravity creates pressure in the pipeline that is normally relieved by pressure-reducing valves.
source/image(PrtSc): Lucid Energy
The LucidPipe turbines, which spin as water flows through them, are placed in-line in the pipes of a water transmission network. r. As the water flows through, it spins four 42-inch (107-cm) turbines, each one of which is hooked up to a generator on the outside of the pipe.
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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 LucidPipe unit could produce up to 100kW of power while extracting about 11.5 ft of head 5 PSI from the system.
In case more energy is needed, multiple turbines can be rapidly and easily added into a single pipeline. They generate electricity by harvesting the excess pressure in the pipeline, reducing the work done by pressure-reducing valves and turning an otherwise untapped energy source into clean electricity for on-site use, to charge batteries and electric vehicles or to feed back to the grid.
