450 US Hydropower Sites Due For Relicensing In Next 10 Years; Average US Dam Age Is 65 Years [View all]

For nearly a century, the Kelley’s Falls Dam in Manchester, New Hampshire, generated as much as 2,400 megawatt-hours of electricity per year. When the small hydroelectric station in a downtown park came up for relicensing in 2022, its owners faced what many dam operators now expect when trying to extend the lifespan of these power generators: strict requirements that would force them to spend millions on upgrades to qualify for a new operating permit. Instead, Green Mountain Power made a choice that has become common among hydroelectric operators. The utility simply surrendered its licenses. Last year, the plant shut down.

Nearly 450 hydroelectric stations totaling more than 16 gigawatts of generating capacity are scheduled for relicensing across the United States over the next decade. That’s roughly 40% of the nonfederal fleet (the government owns about half the hydropower stations in the U.S.). The country is now on the verge of a major shift in hydropower. The facilities could be relicensed to supply the booming demand for electricity to power everything from data centers to aluminum smelters. Tech and industrial giants could even help pay for the costly relicensing process with deals like the record-setting $3 billion contract Google inked with hydropower operator Brookfield Asset Management in July for up to 3 gigawatts of hydropower. Or, as has been happening for years, the U.S. could continue to lose gigawatts of power as hydroelectric facilities shut down rather than absorb the high costs of relicensing — especially with cheaper competition from gas, wind, and solar.

The fleet of dams that helped electrify the nation starting in the late 1800s provides the second-largest share of the country’s renewable power after wind, and by far its most firm. But the average age of U.S. dams is 65 years, meaning the bulk of the fleet wasn’t built with newfangled infrastructure to enable unobstructed passage for fish and other wildlife. As seen in New Hampshire, the cost of upgrading facilities to allow for that passage can soar into the tens of millions of dollars — on top of the expense of upgrading custom-built equipment for each plant. Complicating matters further, after decades of decline in the hydropower sector, the manufacturing muscle for turbines and other hardware that make a dam work has largely atrophied in the U.S.

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https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/hydropower/us-aging-dams-relicensing-clean-energy