Lucid Energy

Lucid Energy is based in Portland, Oregon in the United States. They specialize in harvesting power from moving water in industrial, agricultural, and municipal settings. The key to the technology is that it generates electricity from sources that would otherwise be lost. In other words, it is an energy recycling system. The net result is installations reduce overall energy requirements.

Technology

The company’s primary product is the LucidPipe Power System. This system incorporates Gorlov-type turbines into pipes that carry everything from waste water to sewage. The system works by extracting energy from fluid flowing through large diameter (24 to 96 inches) pipes and effluent systems. The product is modular and can easily be incorporated into existing systems. Installation is easy, with pipe being fit in a day and grid connection occurring within a week.

A single unit can generate up to 100 kW of electricity from only 5 PSI of pressure, but the system can be combined to generate even more power by installing turbines at a distance of one turbine every 4 turbine diameters. A mile of 42” pipeline has the potential to generate up to 3 megawatts of electricity. Even better, a turbine can be inactivated with almost no impact on pipeline efficiency.

LucidPipe Schematic: http://www.lucidenergy.com/how-it-works/