Hydropower pipeline analysis

Hydropower in 2025: Status and future trends

Global hydropower capacity continued to expand in 2025, reaffirming its position as the world’s largest source of renewable electricity and an increasingly important provider of flexibility services to modern power systems. Total installed hydropower capacity reached over 1,469GW by the end of the year, comprising 1,269GW of conventional hydropower and 201GW of pumped storage.

A total of 28GW of new hydropower capacity was commissioned globally in 2025, including 16GW of conventional hydropower and 11.7GW of pumped storage. The year marked a record for pumped storage deployment, with annual additions reaching their highest level to date as global capacity breached the 200GW milestone.

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Annual pumped storage additions are clearly accelerating. In 2025, they entered double digits for the first time, driven by pumped storage’s crucial role in the electrification process. The 6% annual growth of pumped storage in 2025 represents a sharp increase from the historical average of circa 2% between 2010 and 2020.

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On the other hand, conventional hydropower growth remains stable between 1% and 2% per year and heavily concentrated in emerging and developing economies, where the growing demand for reliable and affordable electricity can be satisfied by the vast remaining hydropower potential. Africa, South and Central Asia, and East Asia and Pacific delivered most of the new capacity in 2025.

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On a country level, China again led the way on both conventional hydropower and pumped storage expansion with 4.7GW and 7.5GW added respectively. Significant development also occurred in Ethiopia, with the completion of the 5GW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project. Other countries with notable additions included India (4.2GW) and Indonesia (1.1GW).

Despite these signals and the considerable remaining untapped potential, conventional hydropower development continues to progress well below the deployment rate outlined by the International Renewable Energy Agency in its tripling up scenario to achieve a successful and timely energy transition process.

Hydropower generation in 2025 totalled 4,495TWh. Despite continued capacity expansion, overall output declined compared with the previous year, reflecting variable hydrological conditions across several major producing regions. Regional performance remained uneven, with increases in East Asia and Pacific, Africa and North America offset by lower generation in Europe, South America, and South and Central Asia.

While annual generation remains a key indicator of sector performance, these trends also highlight the evolving role of hydropower within modern power systems. As variable renewable energy deployment accelerates globally, hydropower is increasingly valued and operated not only for its contribution to electricity production, but also for its ability to provide flexibility, balancing services, reserve and blackstart capability and overall system stability. In many markets, hydropower assets are progressively shifting away from traditional baseload operation towards more dynamic and flexible modes of dispatch, supporting the integration of growing shares of solar PV andwind generation.

Lesson from the pipeline

Data collected by IHA indicate that the overall hydropower pipeline is progressively growing, with a total of 1,127GW of projects identified. Noticeably, the pumped storage pipeline reached 621GW in 2025,comprising 243GW under construction, 188GW in a planning or pre-financingphase, and 190GW announced.

Today, pumped storage represents the majority ofhydropower capacity under construction globally, highlighting its central rolein long-duration electricity storage and system balancing. China remains thedominant market, accounting for more than 80% of capacity under construction.

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Other mature power markets, such as India, Europe, US and Australia, continue to account for most remaining pipeline activity, reflecting increasing system flexibility and long-duration electricity storage requirements combined with the urgency to reduce dependency on expensive and volatile carbon-based energy sources.

An emerging trend is the deployment of pumped storage in countries with limited or no conventional hydropower base. The United Arab Emirates commissioned a 250MW pumped storage facility, while Israel expand edits capacity with a second plant, bringing total installed pumping capacity to 644MW. Saudi Arabia has over 4GW of projects in the pipeline, with 1GW alreadyapproved by regulators.
This further reinforces how pumped storage is effectively a universal solution, implementable at large scale across all regions.

Interest is also beginning to grow across developing economies with rapidly accelerating renewable energy deployment. In Southeast Asia, countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are exploring pumped storage to address rising flexibility and storage requirements linked to expanding solar and wind generation. Similar discussions are emerging in Brazil, where increasing renewable curtailment is strengthening the case forlong-duration storage solutions.

Meanwhile, the conventional hydropower pipeline reached 506GW, of which 160GW is under construction. A further 224GW is in planning or waiting for final investment decision, and 122GW is still in the early stages of development.

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The global conventional hydropower pipeline remains heavily concentrated in emerging and developing regions, with East Asia and Pacific accounting for the largest share of projects currently underconstruction. The vast majority of the 106GW of capacity under construction in East Asia and Pacific is located in China, followed by Indonesia with almost over 10GW. South and Central Asia also maintains a substantial pipeline across all development stages, driven by continued investment in large-scale renewable generation and electricity system expansion in India, Pakistan and Nepal.

Earlier-stage development activity is more geographically diversified. Projects in the planning and approval phases are distributed across Africa, South and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific, and South America, indicating sustained long-term interest in conventional hydropower development across emerging markets. Africa in particular has a significant volume of projects in pre-construction stages and remained a key driver of new conventional hydropower additions in 2025, installing more than 4GW for a second consecutive year. This highlights the sector’s potential role in supporting future electrification, industrial growth and energy security objectives across the continent.

These figures highlight the significant remaining potential for conventional hydropower development and its fundamental role in supporting electricity access, grid stability and broader economic development.

The global outlook

The hydropower sector enters the coming years with a record development pipeline and growing recognition of its role in energy security, decarbonisation and system flexibility. Conventional hydropower continues to underpin electricity expansion in developing economies, while pumped storage is emerging as the dominant growth driver in more maturemarkets.

More than 400GW is currently under construction globally across both technologies. While it is difficult to foresee when all of these projects will be commissioned, or whether they will reflect their current form, this scale of activity points to a potential deployment rate of 30–40GW per year over the coming decade, well above recent historical levels.

Pumped storage accounts for over half of this construction activity and is on track to double over the next 10 years and potentially triple over the next 15 years. Annual additions are expected to remain in double digits, reaching more than 20GW in peak years. The East Asia and Pacific region is expected to account for most near-term development, with China retaining a leading role.

This analysis, focusing primarily on projects underconstruction, may potentially understate near-future pumped storage growth. Beyond China’s mass-scale development, several countries hold significant portfolios of well-defined projects that could advance rapidly under supportive conditions. India is particularly notable: over 150GW of pumped storage is currently in development, and the country’s recently announced target of over 100 GW operational capacity by 2035-36 could accelerate a substantial share of this pipeline towards construction and commissioning. Additionally, India has already demonstrated strong delivery capability. The 1.3GW Pinnapuram project, for instance, was completed in just 48 months.

Even if it is complex to forecast the sector’s developmentin the longer term, the substantial volume of projects in planning and announced stages is an encouraging signal, indicating that the current expansion could evolve into a sustained multi-year investment cycle rather than a short-term peak. Realising this potential at scale will depend on improved and sustained policy support to facilitate project development and strengthen investment certainty, especially in more liberalised markets.

Taken together, these dynamics suggest that the current growth trajectory, increasingly driven by a pumped storage renaissance should further progress in the next 5–10 years and could be sustained over the medium to long term. The combination of substantial under-construction capacity and a deep early-stage pipeline provides a structural foundation for continued expansion, signalling that deployment is poised to accelerate in the years ahead.

Achieving this potential will require policymakers to play a central role in establishing clear market and political signals, streamlining permitting and approval processes, and ensuring that regulatory frameworks properly recognise hydropower’s strategic contribution to reliable, flexibleand low-carbon power systems.

Download the full 2026 World Hydropower Outlook report here