Citation
Gbadebo Oladosu. 2026. Updated Baseline Cost Model for Hydropower 2025. HydroSource. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. DOI: 10.21951/BCM2025/3013764
Overview
The “Updated Baseline Cost Model (BCM) for Hydropower (2025)” is an empirical model for estimating the costs of US hydropower projects in six categories (Non-Powered Dam (NPD), New Stream Development (NSD), Canal/Conduit, Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH), Capacity Expansion, Generator Rewind). This update includes an equation for estimating operation and maintenance (O&M) costs, as well as confidence interval calculations for the estimates. The model equations have been estimated with data on existing or planned projects obtained from various sources.
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Keywords
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Baseline Cost Model for Hydropower: Documentation (2025)
Oladosu G.A. and Ma Y. (2026). Baseline Cost Model for Hydropower: Documentation (2025). ORNL/TM-2025/3733, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN. 10.2172/3014292
The Baseline Cost Model for Hydropower (BCMH) was developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (O’Connor, et al., 2015) using data for planned or active projects to support national-scale evaluation of hydropower costs. This report documents a major update of the BCMH, including new data and specifications. The report presents the background, data sources, summaries of the data sample, and a series of parametric models for estimating the initial capital cost (ICC) and the cost of operation and maintenance (O&M) of US hydropower projects. For the ICC, this report presents sub-models for evaluating the capital cost of four categories of hydropower projects ( non-powered dams (NPD), new stream-reach development (NSD), canal/conduits (Canal/Conduit), and pumped storage hydropower (PSH) ), and the potential cost of capacity expansion (CXP) and generator rewind (GRW) modifications to existing hydropower projects. While more sophisticated and bottom-up cost estimation techniques are necessary for specific investment decisions, the aggregate parametric models described in this report are useful for a rapid evaluation of potential US hydropower projects.
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