US InPipe and BluePath Partner to Expand Hydropower Projects Worth $200 Million

en.Wedoany.com Reported - InPipe Energy, a water technology provider based in Portland, Oregon, USA, has partnered with financial firm BluePath Finance to jointly expand power generation from U.S. water infrastructure, with identified potential projects valued at up to $200 million over the next five years.

The partnership is based on the HydroXS turbine solution developed by InPipe Energy. Installed inside pipelines, this system extracts energy from water flow, functioning equivalently to a small-scale hydropower system. BluePath Finance will fund and hold ownership of these systems, supplying power to off-takers as an electricity provider through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). The projects target water utilities and industrial water infrastructure across the United States.

This technology effectively replicates the function of pressure control valves, but rather than dissipating energy across differential pressure, it converts water flow energy into renewable electricity. InPipe Energy CEO Gregg Semler compares the process to an oil well—HydroXS does not drill into oil pipelines but taps into water pipelines, decarbonizing water systems while producing renewable energy. HydroXS can be sized based on flow rate and head, making it suitable for water utilities, agricultural operations, and other water-intensive industries, serving as a predictable, dispatchable power source to address pressures from rising electricity prices, aging infrastructure, decarbonization, and resilience regulatory requirements.

HydroXS technology was launched in 2023. The first community-scale system was deployed at the Skagit Public Utility District in Mount Vernon, Washington, USA, with an expected annual generation capacity of up to 300,000 kWh. The first implementation outside the United States is located at an industrial facility in Rayong Province, southern Thailand, where the generated power is used for on-site consumption, with an expected annual generation of approximately 876,000 kWh and a reduction of 10,600 metric tons of carbon emissions over its 30-year lifecycle. InPipe Energy also has project footprints in other Southeast Asian markets, including Taiwan and Malaysia.

This partnership adopts an Energy-as-a-Service model, combined with BluePath Finance's PPA financing structure, aiming to address the long-standing capital barriers in the adoption of clean energy within U.S. water systems. Water agencies and industrial customers can incorporate on-site clean power generation into operating expenses rather than capital purchases, with little to no upfront capital expenditure, thereby shortening adoption cycles and meeting the demand for additional and lower-cost electricity. BluePath Finance CEO Warren Jones stated that the company was established precisely to unlock scale-up deployment opportunities for such distributed energy technologies, bringing HydroXS to water utilities and industrial operators nationwide by matching the right financing structures.