The International Hydropower Association (IHA) has published its 2026 World Hydropower Outlook, highlighting the increasingly strategic role of hydropower in supporting energy security, electricity access and the integration of renewable energy.
For Africa, the message is particularly significant. The continent added more than 4 GW of new conventional hydropower capacity in 2025, continuing a strong growth trend. Yet the report also highlights a substantial gap between Africa’s enormous hydropower potential and the projects that are actually progressing towards construction.
The Outlook records 52 GW of installed hydropower capacity across Africa in 2025, generating 179 TWh of electricity. This includes 3.7 GW of pumped storage capacity. A total of 4,297 MW of hydropower capacity was added during the year, although none of the new capacity was pumped storage.
A strong year for African hydropower
Africa was one of the world's leading regions for conventional hydropower additions in 2025. More than 4 GW was commissioned for the second consecutive year, reflecting growing electricity demand and the need for reliable renewable generation.
The largest addition was Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The 5,150 MW project was fully inaugurated during 2025 and is now the largest power station in Africa. Tanzania's 2,115 MW Julius Nyerere Hydropower Project was also completed, adding a major new source of electricity to the East African power system.
The year's additions were not, however, limited to large greenfield projects.
In Nigeria, the rehabilitation of the Kainji hydropower plant resulted in a new 80 MW unit being commissioned, bringing the plant's total capacity to 600 MW according to the IHA. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, rehabilitation of Inga II enabled an initial 50 MW to be supplied to the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex, with further increases expected as rehabilitation and transmission improvements continue.
South Africa's Steenbras pumped storage scheme is also undergoing refurbishment. The project continues to provide an important source of system flexibility and has played a particular role in helping protect Cape Town from load shedding.
These examples illustrate an increasingly important aspect of Africa's hydropower development: adding capacity does not necessarily mean building a new dam. Rehabilitation and modernisation of existing facilities can also deliver significant additional generation and improved system performance.
Africa's ageing hydropower fleet offers a major opportunity
The IHA estimates that almost half of Africa's installed hydropower capacity was commissioned more than 25 years ago. Studies indicate that as many as two out of three hydropower plants on the continent could benefit from modernisation.
An IHA study undertaken for the African Development Bank found that around 12% of the continent's hydropower fleet has high modernisation needs, with another 10 GW across 36 plants assessed as medium priority.
This represents a substantial opportunity.
Modernisation can increase the output and efficiency of existing plants, extend their operating lives and improve their ability to respond to changing electricity-system requirements. In systems with rapidly growing solar and wind generation, upgraded hydropower plants can also provide greater flexibility, allowing them to respond more rapidly to changes in renewable generation.
For many African countries, this may offer a relatively attractive complement to greenfield development: the infrastructure, reservoir and grid connection already exist, while the rehabilitation investment can unlock additional value from an established asset.
A huge pipeline — but few projects under construction
Despite the strong additions of the past two years, the IHA's figures also reveal a significant challenge.
Africa has a conventional hydropower development pipeline of approximately 111.5 GW. Yet only 9.1 GW of this capacity is currently under construction. The large majority remains at earlier stages of development, meaning that the strong rate of additions recorded in 2024 and 2025 may not be sustained without substantial progress in project preparation, financing and approvals.
This is perhaps one of the most important messages from the Outlook for Africa.
The continent does not lack prospective hydropower projects. Rather, the challenge is turning identified potential and development pipelines into bankable projects that can reach financial close and construction.
The IHA's regional profile notes that more than 90% of the existing pipeline is either awaiting approval or seeking financial arrangements. Transmission and distribution constraints add another major obstacle, with generation from some existing plants already constrained by inadequate networks.
Transmission is becoming as important as generation
The geographical distribution of Africa's hydropower resources does not always match the location of electricity demand.
This makes regional interconnection particularly important. The IHA highlights planned interconnectors such as Tanzania–Zambia, Ethiopia–Somalia and Angola–DR Congo as important developments that could increase cross-border electricity trade and improve grid reliability.
Progress is already being made. In East Africa, high-voltage interconnections coordinated through the Eastern Africa Power Pool are enabling increasing cross-border electricity trade. In West Africa, the synchronisation of the region's national grids in 2025 represented an important milestone towards a more integrated regional power system.
The benefits of new hydropower can therefore extend well beyond the country in which a plant is located. Stronger regional grids can allow countries with abundant hydropower resources to export electricity to neighbouring countries with higher demand or less favourable generation resources.
For Africa's hydropower development, transmission investment and hydropower investment increasingly need to be considered as two parts of the same system.
Hydropower and Africa's renewable energy transition
The changing role of hydropower is another important theme of the Outlook.
As solar and wind deployment accelerates, hydropower can increasingly provide the flexibility required to balance variable renewable generation. Conventional hydropower can be dispatched when solar or wind output is low, while its ability to ramp production can help manage fluctuations in renewable generation.
This is particularly relevant in Africa, where renewable resources are often located far from major demand centres and where grid systems are still developing.
The IHA expects hydropower to play a central role in meeting Africa's rapidly growing electricity demand over the next 10–15 years. Population growth, urbanisation, industrialisation and the need to expand electricity access will all require large volumes of dependable generation.
This does not mean that hydropower will replace solar and wind. Rather, the technologies can complement one another.
The value of hydropower increasingly lies not only in how many megawatt-hours a plant produces, but also in when those megawatt-hours can be produced.
The largely untapped potential remains
Africa continues to have the world's largest share of untapped hydropower potential, while also having some of the lowest levels of electricity access and per-capita energy consumption.
The combination creates a compelling case for responsible hydropower development. Reliable and affordable electricity is essential for economic development, and hydropower can provide large-scale renewable generation while also delivering flexibility and other system services.
At the same time, development needs to address the environmental and social risks associated with hydropower, as well as increasing hydrological uncertainty resulting from climate change.
The IHA points to the Hydropower Sustainability Standard as one mechanism for aligning African hydropower projects with international good practice and reducing investment risk. Zambia's Ngonye Falls project became the first African project to achieve Gold certification under the Standard in December 2024, while other African projects are progressing through the certification process.
Pumped storage is still waiting for its African moment
One notable contrast between Africa and several other regions is the limited development of pumped storage.
Africa had 3.7 GW of pumped storage capacity installed in 2025, but no new pumped storage capacity was commissioned during the year.
This may change as the continent's solar and wind capacity grows.
South Africa already operates the continent's largest pumped storage fleet, while proposals for new pumped storage projects are emerging elsewhere. The IHA's regional assessment notes increasing interest in pumped storage, including plans for new capacity in South Africa and proposals to convert existing assets in Ghana.
For power systems with increasing shares of variable renewable energy, pumped storage could become particularly valuable. It can absorb surplus electricity when renewable generation is high and release it when demand is high or renewable output falls.
Africa's pumped storage opportunity is therefore likely to grow as the continent's electricity systems become increasingly renewable.
From potential to projects
The 2026 World Hydropower Outlook presents a positive picture of African hydropower, but not an uncomplicated one.
The continent has abundant remaining resources, rapidly growing electricity demand and a substantial project pipeline. More than 4 GW was added in 2025, demonstrating that large hydropower projects can still be delivered in Africa.
But the gap between the 111.5 GW pipeline and the 9.1 GW currently under construction shows that development momentum cannot be taken for granted. Financing, project preparation, regulation, transmission infrastructure and regional electricity markets will all determine how much of that pipeline becomes reality.
At the same time, the existing fleet should not be overlooked. With almost half of Africa's hydropower capacity more than 25 years old, rehabilitation and modernisation could provide some of the quickest opportunities to increase generation, improve reliability and add flexibility.
The future of African hydropower is therefore likely to be shaped by three complementary priorities: developing carefully selected new projects, modernising the existing fleet, and strengthening the transmission networks and regional markets needed to make better use of both.
For a continent where electricity demand is growing rapidly and millions of people still lack reliable access to electricity, the IHA's message is clear: hydropower remains an important part of Africa's energy future. The challenge is now to convert the continent's enormous resource and project pipeline into sustainable, bankable and well-integrated infrastructure.