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Value to the Nation: Hydropower Fast Facts

VTN Fast Facts mapUSACE is the largest owner and operator of hydroelectric power plants in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. The 75 USACE plants have a total installed capacity of approximately 23,900 megawatts (MW), with approximately 60 percent located in the Pacific Northwest. This capability generates about 25 percent of the nation's hydroelectric power and represents approximately 3 percent of the nation's total electric-generating capacity.

The latest Hydropower Fast Facts data available is for 2019. Reports can be selected by national, project, state, USACE Division, or USACE District level.

Hydropower Fast Facts Reports

Select 2019 Hydropower Fast Facts Reports from the USACE Digital Library collections:

You can select an individual report, or go to a collection of reports. For a list of all reports in a collection, for example, in the project report collection, select "All Project Reports".

How these numbers were calculated.

Hydropower Benefits in Perspective

The primary National Economic Development (NED) benefit of USACE hydropower efforts is the willingness to pay for hydropower output from USACE projects. For existing USACE hydropower capital stock, an estimate of replacement in kind is the most likely and most economical alternative. Accordingly, the replacement value of energy produced by USACE hydropower facilities is used as proxy for the willingness to pay for hydropower output from USACE projects. Energy replacement values illustrate the cost of energy from alternative generating resources used to replace lost hydropower generation from outages.