Published: August 26, 2008 10:39 am         

Bonneyville park dam being used to test new electric generator

Manufacturers of a renewable energy technology have been working the past year installing test models at various locations, including the dam at Bristol’s historic Bonneyville Mill County Park.

The company, Goshen-based Lucid Energy Technologies, utilizes the Gorlov Helical Turbine, which harnesses the energy-producing potential of a regular turbine while eliminating flaws previously associated with it. By twisting the blades of the turbine in a helix form, inventor Alexander Gorlov eliminated the problem of instability and vibration, according to the company’s Web site.

“The Bonneyville Mill dam created a unique setting for the turbine,” said Josh Thomas, systems specialist for Lucid.

Thomas, who has been monitoring the company’s specialized turbine since its installation earlier this year, indicated that the company is using the mill dam as a way to test the turbine’s ability to augment a dam’s existing energy-producing potential.

“While traditional dams generate electricity from the potential energy of water elevation, GHT’s are able to capture the tremendous amount of kinetic energy in the water leaving the dam,” Thomas said of the process commonly known as dam tailing. “Essentially we’ve just been evaluating the performance of the GHT in this new configuration.”

Through such testing, Thomas indicated that GHT’s have been found to boost the electricity production of existing power-generating dams by as much as 25 percent, all the while causing very little impact on existing infrastructure or local ecology.

“It’s performing quite well. It’s been kind of a learning process for us,” Thomas said of the mill’s test model. “We’re getting a decent amount of power out of it when there’s decent flow. Water levels are often low during the summer months, but so far we’re happy with it.”

In fact, according to Thomas, reliance on water flow is one of the only real downsides associated with this type of power generation.

“You can only generate when you have resources available,” Thomas said.

At maximum flow, Thomas indicated that the mill GHT is producing about five kilowatts of electricity an hour.

“Peak usage at a home is about 1.5 kilowatts an hour, while average usage over a period of 24 hours is more like 20 kilowatt hours,” Thomas said. “You could say one turbine can generate enough electricity to power three homes.”

When asked how much longer he expects the GHT to remain at Bonneyville Mill, Elkhart County Parks Director Dan Seltenright indicated that recent changes in the ownership of Lucid Energy have left the ball in the company’s court.

Lucid Energy recently merged with the Canadian firm Vigor Clean Tech, which now holds a 50 percent stake in the company.

“I don’t really know for sure how much longer the turbine will remain at Bonneyville,” Seltenright said. “My understanding is that Lucid Energy has merged with another company, and while the president of the new company I believe lives here in Goshen, I have had no contact with him yet.”

However, according to Thomas, Lucid Energy Technologies has no plans to pull up stakes at the mill any time soon.

“We plan to continue our evaluations on an ongoing basis,” Thomas said. “We currently have terms with the Elkhart County Parks Department for evaluation purposes, and right now there is some talk about leaving the turbine there permanently and donating the electricity generated to the department.

“There is always something new to evaluate or learn, so right now we’re just looking at ways to use the electricity produced at the mill instead of just throwing it away,” he said.