Cadiz, a California land and water resources development company, and Lucid Energy, a provider of in-pipe hydropower infrastructure, have entered into a joint venture to create renewable energy for the Arizona & California Railroad Company (ARZC) as a component of the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery & Storage Project.
Installation of the LucidPipe Power System in the Cadiz Water Project’s planned 43-mile water conveyance pipeline will allow new power to be generated for expanding existing transloading operations and other railroad purposes. An average of about 50,000 acre-feet of water per year will be conveyed through the pipeline via gravity flow downhill to the Colorado River Aqueduct.
LucidPipe is a patented, in-pipe turbine generator that captures the energy of moving water inside large pipelines and converts it to a continuous source of low-cost electricity. Water passes through spherical, lift-based turbines and causes them to spin, generating electricity from the water flow and pressure head inside the pipe. Because the system operates inside of pipelines, it creates no environmental impacts and is not subject to intermittency issues caused by weather conditions.
Lucid's in-pipe hydropower system has also been installed in Portland, Oregon, and Riverside, California. LucidPipe turbines have been tested and certified by NSF International to NSF/ANSI Standard 61 for use in potable water systems.
