Hydroelectric Energy

How Hydroelectric Fits Into the U.S. Grid

Hydroelectric generated 242.9M MWh of electricity across the United States in 2024 per EIA State Electricity Profiles, drawing on reported output from 48 of the 48 states covered in the dataset. Washington is the single largest producer, delivering 60.7M MWh of hydroelectric power that year, which amounts to 59.7% of that state's own generation mix. Beyond the top producer, states like California, New York, Oregon round out the leaderboard, each contributing 29.5M MWh or more. As a renewable fuel, hydroelectric's growth trajectory depends heavily on state clean-energy policy, transmission access, and the pace of capacity additions reported to EIA each year.

Looking at the state-by-state rankings below, hydroelectric's role varies dramatically across the country, from 59.7% of the mix in Washington down to single-digit shares in states where it's mostly supplementary. That spread reflects three things the EIA data captures directly: local resource availability (a sunlight, wind, or water endowment), installed generating capacity, and the policy framework that sets what gets dispatched. For renewables, a high in-state share almost always pairs with either favorable geography or a binding renewable portfolio standard that pulls capacity onto the grid. Readers comparing states with similar shares should still check local utility rate cases, since the same fuel mix can produce different retail bills depending on transmission, distribution, and stranded-cost recovery.

For practical purposes, the numbers on this page support three common questions. First, how meaningful is hydroelectric to my state's electricity supply? The share-of-mix column answers that directly from EIA records. Second, is production growing or stable? Comparing 2024 generation against prior-year releases (available on EIA.gov) shows the trend. Third, is my state positioned to see a larger role for hydroelectric going forward? For renewables, the combination of current capacity, resource potential, and state clean-energy targets usually forecasts the next few years of growth. Each detail page links back to the individual state profile so readers can combine source-level and state-level data without losing context.