Hydropower Plants are Struggling Out West
Things are looking dire for iconic hydropower plants in the western part of the U.S. like the Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. The entire area has been suffering through a “megadrought” which has substantially reduced the amount of water available for generation purposes. Unfortunately, it’s not clear if things will be getting better anytime soon.
How the Hydropower Plants in the West are Dead in the Water
In August 2021, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), which operates in 11 western states, declared the first-ever federal water shortage at Lake Mead. Then in early Sept., the USBR said that declining levels within Lake Mead, the largest reservoir at the Colorado River, is impacting the Hoover Dam, which would affect the areas it serves including Los Angeles and parts of Arizona and Nevada.
All told, as of the time of this writing, Lake Mead is down about 25%. Lake Powell, along the Glen Canyon Dam, is down a whopping 41%. While that sounds dire, all is not lost. Glen Canyon maintains about 30 MW of generation capacity in reserve to respond to a system emergency, and USBR is in the process of expanding the size of the lake to increase its hydrology. And, the USBR expects the California hydropower reservoir levels to remain “above power pool minimums” for at least the rest of 2021.
Unfortunately, the impact in future years is less clear. The primary drivers of the drought – high temperatures, low precipitation, and forest fires – are not expected to resolve in a material way in the near future.
This, of course, presents yet another challenge to the utility companies in the west. Outages are already a problem, and a reduction in reliable supply will only compound the problem. Initiatives like undergrounding, microgrids, and system hardening will help, but until these efforts mature, it’s going to be a bumpy road, especially for hydropower plants.
