Governments and policy makers need to pay more attention to hydropower as a major source of low-emission flexible power generation in the age of booming electricity demand, Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said on Friday.
Hydropower “remains the forgotten giant of electricity,” Birol wrote in a LinkedIn post, calling for greater role for the “forgotten” clean energy source in the global electricity systems.
Hydropower accounted for about 14% of total global electricity supply in 2024. This share of hydropower is similar to “all the power produced worldwide by solar and wind combined, and 50% more than the amount generated from nuclear plants,” the head of the IEA said.
Of all power sources, hydropower is the third largest source of power generation worldwide after coal and natural gas, he added.
Some countries have large hydropower generation as a share of power supply, including Brazil and Norway. But worldwide, this power source has stayed at the background, obliterated by the surge in solar and wind capacity installations and power generation.
“Hydro is frequently an afterthought in global energy policy discussions. As I said, a forgotten giant,” Birol wrote.
“Now, as decision-makers around the world contend with how to meet renewed strong growth in electricity consumption, I believe it’s high time to give hydropower the attention it deserves.”
As global electricity demand is set to soar in the coming decades, “Hydropower can help meet this increasing power consumption as populations and economies grow, electrification advances and investment pours into digital infrastructure like data centres,” the IEA’s Birol said.
Moreover, hydropower provides “unmatched flexibility”, which can be indispensable for countries looking to integrate rising levels of solar and wind into their electricity systems, according to the executive, who calls for moving hydropower up on the energy policy agenda.
Large computing power consumers have turned to hydropower to support their operations with low-emission electricity.
Earlier this year, Google struck a landmark deal to buy more than $3 billion worth of hydroelectric power from Brookfield Asset Management to supply its data centers, with the potential to scale up the agreement to 3,000 megawatts — making it the largest corporate hydropower deal ever signed.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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