U.S. hydropower net capacity grew 2.1 GW from 2010 to 2022, according to the fourth edition of the U.S. Hydropower Market Report.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) released the report, which highlights key developments across multiple sectors of the hydropower industry. The new report “combines the latest data from public and commercial sources, as well as research findings from other DOE research and development projects, to provide a comprehensive picture of developments in the U.S. hydropower and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) fleet and industry trends.” The report highlights developments from 2020 to 2022 and summarizes this information by region, plant size, owner type and other attributes.
DOE worked with ORNL to develop the first edition of the U.S. Hydropower Market Report in 2014, to highlight trends and key planning and development information in hydropower. That report answered the need for easily accessible, comprehensive information on U.S. hydropower development (including new projects and upgrades and rehabilitations at existing plants), performance, market value and supply chains.
The report indicates growing PSH investment internationally, as well as interest in new PSH development domestically; a likely trend toward adding battery capacity to existing facilities; significant hydropower capacity growth from non-powered dam retrofits; and supply chain issues with turbine-generator units and steel castings. It also includes updates on development pipelines, permitting and relicensing activity, refurbishment and upgrade investments, and generation.
The 2023 report documents U.S. hydropower net capacity growth of 2.1 GW, primarily from a combination of upgrades to the existing fleet (1.4 GW) and non-powered dam retrofits (0.5 GW). It also found an uptick in the number of new U.S. PSH projects under active consideration — 96 PSH projects were in the U.S. development pipeline at the end of 2022 versus 67 at the end of 2019 — with 10 projects that have advanced beyond the feasibility evaluation stage.
The report identified nascent interest in hybrid plant configurations (e.g., at least 11 U.S. hydropower plants have added or are planning to add battery capacity to access new revenue streams and mitigate wear and tear of hydropower turbines). It also includes a discussion of supply chain issues (e.g., difficulty to domestically procure large steel castings and limited workforce availability) and potential ways to address them.
The report also offers updates on U.S. hydropower and PSH permitting and relicensing activity; refurbishment and upgrade investments; performance metrics such as generation, capacity factor, availability factor; and flexibility indicators such as one-hour ramping and unit starts.
