Hydropower Program

Hydropower—or power generated from the natural flow of water—is the United States’ oldest source of renewable electricity. In 2023, hydropower accounted for nearly 27% of U.S. renewable electricity generation. Pumped storage hydropower remains the largest contributor to U.S. energy storage, representing roughly 96% of all commercial storage capacity in the United States in 2022.

Hydropower is a clean, renewable, domestic source of energy and provides enormous benefits to the country’s grid. Hydropower’s flexibility allows it to seamlessly integrate other energy sources and act as a force multiplier for other renewables, and makes it an invaluable resource for powering the grid after an outage. Despite hydropower being a well-established technology, it still has untapped potential and opportunity for growth; for example, less than 3% of the nation’s multi-purpose dams are also used to generation electricity, and the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) estimates that adding generation to existing non-powered dams could add 4.8 GW of reliable, renewable electricity to the grid by 2050. Additional pumped storage hydropower can provide long-duration storage needed by the evolving grid, and preliminary studies suggest at least 35 GW of new PSH might be feasible. 

The WPTO Hydropower Program works to advance hydropower through R&D projects focused on five core activity areas:

1) Innovations for Low-Impact Hydropower Growth

2) Grid Reliability, Resilience, & Integration (HydroWIRES)

3) Fleet Modernization, Maintenance, & Cybersecurity

4) Environmental & Hydrologic Systems Science

5) Data Access & Analytics

WPTO has two memorandums of understanding focused on hydropower. This includes the Memorandum of Understanding for Federal Hydropower with the Department of the Interior (through the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) and the Department of the Army (through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) that aims to enhance collaboration between agencies and leverage resources to meet the nation's need for reliable and affordable hydropower. Additionally, the Memorandum of Understanding for Hydropower Technology Development with the Tennessee Valley Authority seeks to enhance collaboration on hydropower technology development.

Hydropower Newsletters

To stay up to date on the latest hydropower funding opportunities and news, subscribe to WPTO's Hydro Headlines newsletter. Additionally, subscribe to the Water Wire newsletter for the latest water power-related news, events, funding opportunities and more.