Voices of Hydro introduces the people behind the power. In this series, industry leaders share how they’re driving the sector forward by tackling challenges, championing innovations and sharing moments that made them proud. These are the people who keep our lights on and our energy future, secure.

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Please introduce yourself and tell us about your role.

I'm Frédéric Sauze, Member of the Executive Board of ANDRITZ and CEO of ANDRITZ Hydropower.

Over the course of my career, I've had the chance to live and work in different parts of the world, including Europe, Mexico and North America. One thing that always strikes me is how closely energy is connected to people's lives. Reliable electricity creates opportunities, supports economic development and improves quality of life.

I've been with ANDRITZ since 2013 and what continues to motivate me is that our work has a visible and lasting impact. Hydropower projects often operate for generations. Very few industries can say that decisions made today will still be creating value fifty or even a hundred years from now. That's something I find inspiring.

Today, my role as a CEO is to guide our global hydropower business, support our teams around the world and ensure that we continue helping our customers navigate the energy transition successfully.

What challenge in the hydropower sector is your organisation working to address?

The energy transition requires much more than renewable electricity generation. It requires flexibility, resilience, energy storage and stable grids. This is one of the defining challenges of our time.

At ANDRITZ Hydropower, we are helping customers address this challenge by modernizing existing hydropower plants, developing pumped storage schemes and providing technologies that strengthen grid stability. As wind and solar capacities continue to grow worldwide, hydropower's ability to balance these variable resources becomes increasingly important. We believe hydropower is not only the largest renewable energy source today, but also one of the key enablers of a reliable net-zero energy system.

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What key technology or innovation is your organisation focused on?

Innovation at ANDRITZ Hydropower is centred around three areas: hydropower solutions, lifetime and digital services, and grid solutions.

We are investing heavily in technologies that improve flexibility, efficiency and reliability. This includes advanced pumped storage solutions, digital predictive maintenance and asset management, AI-supported inspection systems, hybrid solutions with batteries and synchronous condenser technologies that help power systems cope with increasing shares of renewables.

Digitalization is becoming a major accelerator for our industry. By combining engineering expertise with data analytics and artificial intelligence, we can help plant operators optimize performance, extend asset lifetimes and improve operational decision-making. These may sound like technical topics, but ultimately, they all serve one purpose: helping our customers get more value from their assets while supporting a cleaner and more reliable electricity system.

Just as important is the human side of innovation: building the skills of local teams, transferring knowledge and making sure that customers can operate and maintain these assets safely and confidently for decades.

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Is there a recent milestone or achievement from your organisation that you would like to highlight?

I am particularly proud of the strong momentum ANDRITZ Hydropower has achieved globally. We have experienced record order intake, a strong multi-year backlog and continued growth in markets that are critical for the clean energy transition.

An important milestone has also been the establishment and expansion of our Grid Solutions activities, reflecting the increasing importance of grid stability and system flexibility in modern energy systems.

Beyond business performance, I am equally proud of the investments we are making in people, manufacturing capacity, safety and innovation, because these are the foundations that enable long-term success and reliable project delivery for our customers worldwide. Those investments don't always make headlines, but they are essential for the future of our industry.

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What are you most proud of at the moment?

Without hesitation: our people.

Whenever I visit one of our locations, whether it's a workshop, an engineering office or a project site, I come away impressed by the dedication and expertise of our teams.

Hydropower projects are complex. They often take years to develop and execute. Success requires engineers, technicians, project managers, site teams working together with customers across cultures, languages and time zones.

What makes me optimistic is seeing the passion that people still bring to this industry. There is a strong sense that what we do matters. We are building infrastructure that supports communities, economies and the transition to clean energy. That's something worth being proud of.

In many places, hydropower creates value far beyond the powerhouse: it can help build local expertise, support regional economy and give communities a more resilient foundation for long-term development.

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Is there anything else you would like to share?

I genuinely believe that the best years for hydropower are still ahead of us.

When people think about the energy transition, they often think about solar panels and wind turbines. By 2050, I think many will recognize that achieving a fully renewable energy system would not have been possible without flexibility and storage.

My vision is that hydropower and pumped storage remain one of the defining infrastructure technologies of the clean energy era. They provide most of the world's large-scale energy storage, and I believe its importance will further increase as electricity systems continue to decarbonize.

At the same time, I hope we continue making progress on sustainability, collaboration and attracting new talent into our industry. We need young engineers, new perspectives and closer cooperation across the entire renewable energy sector. Sustainability must be understood in a very practical way: how we work with communities, how we protect natural resources, how we build local capacity and how we leave behind knowledge and infrastructure that continue to create value long after a project is completed.

Hydropower has a remarkable story to tell. It's an industry with more than a century of experience, but it's also helping solve some of the most important challenges of the future. For me, that's what makes it such a rewarding industry to be part of.

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