Hydropower
Hydropower and pumped hydro storage can be mainstays of a sustainable energy system, providing reliable renewable generation, grid regulation, and flexibility.
It’s challenging to plan and design projects that maximize capacity and will be profitable and resilient over the long term, when our climate, environment, and energy systems are changing rapidly.
You need a partner with the vision, technical excellence, and experience to help your project reach its potential while working in harmony with the environment and local communities.
What can we do for you?
We’re global experts with a long heritage in hydropower worldwide, having worked on numerous pioneering projects that are still world-leading after many decades in service.
We can offer you:
Flexibility and security
We work on all types of hydro projects to deliver electricity generation, enhance energy system security, and integrate with other renewables.
Sustainability
We help you make early, informed, evidence-based decisions about the location, capacity, and scope of your project, ensuring it works with natural systems rather than against them and achieves regulatory expectations.
Lasting value
We work from an early stage to help you secure a supportive social license to operate, and ultimately designing assets, structures, and systems that are better for your organization and its stakeholders, delivering long-term reward.
End-to-end support
From water to wire, and from inception to operation, our comprehensive skill set means we can add value at every stage of hydro projects.
Ngonye Falls hydropower project, Zambia. The 180MW project on the Zambezi River in west Zambia will generate 830GWh of electricity a year − enough for more than 200,000 Zambian households.
Global experience, local delivery
Our global experience is combined with local presence and knowledge. With integrated multidisciplinary advisory and technical capability, our skill set covers every aspect of hydro and pumped storage projects.
Our experience
We have over a century of experience in hydropower, having worked on the first heightening of the Aswan Dam in Egypt more than 100 years ago.
Our pumped hydro storage heritage stretches back more than 60 years to the 360 MW storage project at Ffestiniog, Wales, which set new standards in hydraulic design and structural efficiency.
We also helped develop the 400-megawatt Cruachan project in Scotland — one of the first reversible pumped storage systems — and were involved in designing the 1.2 GW Dinorwig project in Wales that has been in operation for 40 years, delivering very rapid response capability.
Our recent projects include:
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Bunji dam, PakistanWe provided a feasibility study, detailed engineering, and tender documents for this 7.1-gigawatt dam on the Indus. If built, it will be the largest hydropower project in Pakistan.
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Chaglla dam, PeruWe provided technical and contractual support as well as construction monitoring for lenders on this project to build one of the world’s largest concrete-faced rockfill dams at Chaglla, providing 6% of Peru’s total electricity.
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Cierny Vah pumped storage power plant, SlovakiaWe provided pre-feasibility assessments and optioneering for the modernization of the 40-year-old 730-megawatt Čierny Váh pumped storage power plant.
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Kidston pumped storage plant, AustraliaWe provided an optimization study and detailed designs for this project to transform the former gold mining settlement of Kidston in Queensland into a renewable energy hub with a 250-megawatt pumped storage plant at its core.
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Ngonye Falls hydropower project, ZambiaWe’ve acted as owner’s engineer for this 180-megawatt hydropower project on the Zambezi River, which is set to generate an average of 830 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year — enough for 200,000 Zambian households.
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Skavica dam, AlbaniaSkavica will be one of the highest concrete gravity dams in the world and will become the controlling dam to an existing three-plant cascade system. We carried out front end engineering design for the project.
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Suki Kinari hydropower project, PakistanHigh in the Karakoram Mountains, Suki Kinari is a run-of-river hydropower project that generates enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes.
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Tarbela hydropower facility, PakistanWe designed all five projects at Tarbela, Pakistan’s biggest hydropower facility — which captures the potential of water released for irrigation — and are now extending its capacity to 6.4 gigawatts and adding floating photovoltaics to help meet peak demand and increase access to renewable energy.
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White Pine pumped storage project, Nevada, USAThe 1,000-megawatt White Pine pumped hydro storage project under development in Ely, Nevada, will provide 8,000 megawatt-hours of energy storage to generate up to eight hours of electricity. We’ve provided feasibility engineering and assessments, licensing support, and other specialist services to shape the project.
Water Resources Forecaster
Water Resources Forecaster blends historic, real-time, and seasonally predicted weather data to estimate river flow and water availability. It enables users to compare today’s values with long-term ranges. And it uses forecasts to simulate river flows for a range of potential futures. It takes account of potential natural water losses and of gains. The result gives water and hydropower operators a credible glimpse of weeks and months ahead.
