Drought Cut European Hydro Output by 13 TWh From April to July, pv magazine Reports
Seven river-fed power systems produced roughly 13 TWh less hydroelectricity between April and July 2026 than their 2019-25 average for the same months, according to pv magazine. The shortfall runs across a drought corridor stretching from the Rhine delta to the lower Danube, where output was about one-fifth below the recent norm and fell by a third to a half in the worst-hit systems.
The seven systems counted in that total are Austria, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia and France, pv magazine reported.
River measurements track the decline month by month. Modelled daily discharge for the Rhine at Lobith, where the river enters the Netherlands, averaged 81% of its 2019-25 norm in April, then 66% in May, 58% in June and 37% in July, according to pv magazine.
The steepest reading came in southwest France. The Garonne at Tonneins averaged 5% of its normal July flow, with sixteen days running below anything recorded in 2019 to 25, pv magazine reported.
Thermal generation followed the water. Nuclear plants along the Danube cut output as river flows dropped to their lowest levels in seven years, according to pv magazine.
The sharpest single move came at Paks in Hungary, where daily output fell from 38 GWh on July 28 to 21 GWh on July 31, a cut of 45% in three days and the plant's lowest level of the entire window, pv magazine reported. Bulgarian nuclear output had already run 22% below its June norm.
The picture was not uniform across the continent. Portuguese hydro ran 117% above its norm in July after a rain-heavy first half of the year, according to pv magazine.
Source: pv-magazine.com (opens in a new tab)1 sourcePermalink