08/20/2026
“What is the deal with hydropower and Glen Canyon Dam? And is it really that important to the Western power grid?”
These are the questions author Jonathan Thompson Jonathan Thompson is asking as the Bureau of Reclamation centralizes trying to keep Glen Canyon Dam viable. Hydropower dynamics are particularly important to understand given that “keeping the turbines turning is one of the main reasons the feds give for not even considering the proposal to reengineer the dam.”
Eight generators sit at the toe of the dam, fueled by water channeled from Lake Powell reservoir through the dam’s eight penstocks. Collectively, the dam has a total generating capacity of 1,320 MW. But, as Thompson explains, that full capacity is only true when the reservoir is at full pool. Back in the 1980s, when the reservoir was full, Glen Canyon Dam’s annual output was nearly 9 million megawatt-hours. But in 2025, it only produced 2.75 million megawatt-hours. This year’s output will be even lower, since both reservoir levels and dam releases have dropped significantly.
Thompson’s conclusion? “Glen Canyon Dam is less and less critical to the Southwestern power grid with each passing year, and its importance is likely to continue to decline as aridification continues to rob it of its ability to produce power, and as more battery storage comes online to take up its grid-balancing role.” And all of this makes one wonder: “Is it really worth it for the feds to expend so much energy and resources… to preserve a dam that just isn’t doing what it was intended to?”
Click on the News tab at the link in our bio to read the full article and others that help make sense of today’s historically low conditions on the Colorado River.
