Hydropower contributes to 9% of Ukrainian electricity demands but the ongoing conflict in the region, including the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in June 2023, has placed the country’s electricity generation capacity in jeopardy. And with uncertainty about power production going into the near future, the Ukrainian government can only benefit from a greater understanding of its hydroelectric resources.
Lack of data
Ukrainian rivers are currently not only a substantial contributor to the country’s power production, but they’re also a potential source of future growth too. However, Ukraine is similar to other regions of the world that do not currently have substantial river gauges and without these are unable to record recent or historic patterns to inform models or decision-making regarding reliance on river-water availability.
Although historic river discharge data does exist in the Ukraine, its collection ceased back in the late 1980s to early 1990s with the fall of the Soviet Union. Such a lack of data precludes direct monitoring of river discharge and therefore challenges future predictions at a time when military conflict is hampering electricity generation, and decision-makers face challenging conditions for planning long-term reliance. Fortunately, recent advances in satellite image processing may provide a way forwards.
Turning to satellite imagery
To help understand and predict whether hydropower has strong potential for short-term development in a conflict situation, a research team from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the US has demonstrated a protocol for monitoring a near-real-time river-discharge proxy from satellite imagery, and for modelling near-future regional hydrologic conditions.
The study focused on eight sites associated with seven hydroelectric power stations located throughout the Ukraine along the Dnieper and Dniester Rivers. It builds on existing research to use very-high resolution satellite imagery for more measurements while applying automated processing techniques for efficient time-series mapping. The resulting measurements are then combined with downscaled models for high-resolution, near-term hydrologic predictions that are appropriate for deployable electricity-generation solutions by a nation at war.
Overall, the results from the time-series discharge and all climate models indicate persistent water availability for all sites over the study period. Only the magnitude and time of maximum annual discharge to the reservoir show a significant trend during the study window, but these are described as being moderate, with yearly peaks slightly lower and arriving earlier. The results suggest hydropower is underutilised in Ukraine relative to its potential based on hydrologic and economic conditions.
Other recent studies into Ukrainian small hydro potential have also identified an economically feasible potential of 3747GWh/year, of which only 242GWh/year were installed as of 2019. It’s been suggested small hydropower plants of a 1MW installed capacity would be suitable for the Ukraine, and could each generate 4850MWh per year. They’d only take one year to construct and, assuming relatively stable hydrologic condition, could last up to 30 years.
Reference
Monitoring and modelling hydrologic conditions in Ukraine for hydropower generation by Matthew J. McCarthy, Shannon Meade, Jesus D. Gomez-Velez, David Hughes. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies 60 (2025) 102518.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2025.102518
