We support a growing portfolio of enterprise-ready digital solutions that are secure, easy to integrate, and scalable to meet the needs of projects of any size.
Expert insights on issues that transform business, increase sustainability and improve lives
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With hundreds of hydropower and pumped storage projects engineered around the globe, our multi-disciplinary teams are world leading experts who have developed and delivered strategic assets for many decades. Our projects support resilient power systems, balance performance, manage risk and deliver long-term value, operating reliably for generations.
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 licence to operate, and ultimately designing assets, structures and systems that are better for your organisation 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.
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.
We provide:
We provide:
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We can:
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 360MW storage project at Ffestiniog, Wales, which set new standards in hydraulic design and structural efficiency.
We also helped develop the 400MW Cruachan scheme in Scotland – one of the first reversible pumped storage systems – and were involved in designing the 1.2GW Dinorwig Scheme in Wales that has been in operation for 40 years, delivering very rapid response capability.
Our recent projects include:
Australia
Brian Minhinick
Global practice leader, hydropower
Solar and wind power are critical to achieving net zero, but hydrogen could be the key to further decarbonisation. Making that happen calls for collaboration and planning today, says Mott MacDonald principal process engineer Alicia Bahler.
2025 continues to evolve a complex geopolitical and economic landscape with shifting market focus and arguably increasing risks of supply chain disruptions affecting our US energy industry.
Forty years since the opening of the Dinorwig pumped storage hydropower station in north Wales it has found new purpose, supporting grid decarbonising by storing renewable energy.
Mott MacDonald, in partnership with GHD and Stantec under the Water2Wire joint venture (JV), has been selected by Queensland Hydro as the dams designer delivery partner for the Borumba Pumped Hydro Project.
Muswellbrook Pumped Hydro Pty Ltd, a joint venture between AGL and Idemitsu Australia, received AUD$9.45 million funding in late 2022 under the NSW Government’s Pumped Hydro Recoverable Grants Program, to progress the project.
The 750MW Capricornia Pumped Hydro project is under development in Queensland, Australia. Expected to be operational by 2032, the project will deliver enough power to meet roughly 4% of Queensland's total energy demand.
The 1GW White Pine pumped-hydro storage project is under development in White Pine County, Nevada.
The 730MW Čierny Váh pumped storage power plant is Slovakia’s largest pumped storage power plant and largest hydroelectric power plant. It commenced operations in 1982.
Advanced computer modelling – including bespoke systems – enabled us to evaluate all the options for a technically challenging project to expand Albania’s hydropower capacity.
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.