U.S. Dams Could Unlock 15.2 Terawatt-Hours of Untapped Hydropower

The United States’ existing dams could produce an additional 15.2 terawatt-hours of electricity per year, enough to power more than 1.4 million homes across the country. A new study from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory found that by retrofitting select dams that are not already outfitted for hydropower production could prove to be a critical and efficient source of clean energy at a much lower cost than traditional hydropower projects.These findings are based on modelling through a new software called HydroGenerate, developed by researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory. The ‘multi-stream data architecture’ model crunches water flow data from the U.S. Geological Survey and from Oak Ridge to determine potential power production from a given dam by inputting turbine performance curves and hydraulic head.The combination of these various data sets provides a much more accurate view of hydropower potential than ever before. The modelling takes into account optimal turbine design, seasonality, and existing structural realities, among other critical factors relating to the individualized characteristics of these existing dams. “Many of these dams already serve other critical purposes, and their operational constraints — such as flood control or navigation — can significantly limit hydropower development,” Carly Hansen, the project’s principal investigator and lead author of the report, was recently quoted by Interesting Engineering. “We’ve worked to reflect those limitations in a way that hadn’t been done before.”Set OilPrice.com as a preferred source in Google here.Even when accounting for the many limitations presented by working with existing infrastructure, the findings indicate that there is an abundance of exploitable, emissions-free energy sitting dormant across the nation. Most of the dams that the analysis identified as suitable for hydropower retrofitting are in the Great Lakes basin and the upper Mississippi River, and 86 percent are federal facilities.Adding this identified additional capacity would change the geography of hydropower in the United States and bring this clean energy resource to regions that are currently underrepresented in the sector. In 2025, the top hydropower producing states in the U.S. were Washington (27 percent of U.S. total conventional hydroelectricity net summer generation capacity), California (13 percent), Oregon (10 percent), New York (6 percent), and Alabama (4 percent).At present, just 3 percent of the United States’ dams are equipped for power generation, but that could soon change. Last month, the United States Department of Energy’s Hydropower and Hydrokinetic Office (H2O) – the same office supporting the HydroGenerate project – awarded $5.5 million in funding across 11 U.S. National Laboratory projects to help speed up and simplify the licensing process for hydropower facilities.“For over 100 years, hydropower has been a pillar of American energy, supplying reliable, affordable power across the nation,” H2O Director Nichole Fitzgerald said in a press release. “The projects selected today will not only help ensure the continued operation of America’s hydropower plants but also keep permitting and relicensing costs down for operators so they can pass those saving along to ratepayers.”This initiative has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the United States House of Representatives as well as in the Senate, a vanishingly rare occurrence for clean energy development. “It’s rare to see so many lawmakers from different parties and regions united on behalf of a common cause, but that’s what makes hydropower so unique,” said the National Hydropower Association’s senior director of legislative affairs, Matthew Allen. “Hydro’s dependable power and critical infrastructure can help lower Americans’ bills and provide good jobs for generations of families. But the current, outdated licensing process is slowing down new construction and threatens around 16 gigawatts (GW) of hydropower going through relicensing in the next decade.”By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.comMore Top Reads From Oilprice.comSupertanker Rates Hit $800,000 a Day as Gulf Tensions EscalateTrump's Grid Battery Ban Leaves Developers GuessingStolen Electricity is Powering Illegal Crypto Farms Across the Globe