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Hoover Dam annual electricity generation. (Geoff McGhee\/The Water Desk)<\/p>\n
Less water flowing out of Powell comes with an unfortunate side effect: the acceleration of Mead\u2019s decline. Earlier this month, Mead was dropping roughly one foot every five days. It is now at 1,050 feet. At this rate, the 1,035 mark will be breached later this summer.<\/p>\n
There is much uncertainty to that timeline, though. The lower basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada have proposed a conservation plan that might keep Mead above 1,035 until next spring. Mead\u2019s rate of decline in the last week was a foot every five to seven days. The timing of the cliff depends on conservation, summer heat and whatever moisture the summer monsoon brings.<\/p>\n
That means a lot of watching and recalibrating, said Dane Bradfield, general manager of Lincoln County Power District, in eastern Nevada.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a kick-back summer by any means,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rising Costs<\/strong><\/p>\n Because his district has a contract for Hoover power, Bradfield is among those deep in the trenches. Hoover\u2019s power customers are feeling the repercussions of declining hydropower generation.<\/p>\n Lincoln County Power District has more skin in the game than most. The district, which serves about 5,000 people in a county north of Las Vegas, gets about 70 percent of its electricity from Hoover.<\/p>\n The district forecasts power generation and demand. It then attempts to hedge against any shortfall with market contracts. Even with Hoover\u2019s struggles, Bradfield said he is confident the district has secured enough power through 2026. He\u2019s now looking ahead to 2027. Fortunately, market conditions are favorable right now.<\/p>\n \u201cOur prices are somewhat low from what we\u2019ve seen maybe a year or two ago, but it all changes so fast,\u201d Bradfield said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the volatility of the market and also the risk. But our plan right now is to make those purchases a year in advance and just be ready for when the bottom falls out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Lincoln County has also been acquiring solar power resources, which helped to cushion the hydropower shortfall that already occurred<\/a>. Hoover\u2019s output today<\/a> is between 40 percent and 50 percent lower than it was in 2000, when Mead was full and Lincoln County received all of its power from Hoover.<\/p>\n Hydropower has traditionally been a cheap source of electricity. That might no longer be the case if Mead topples over the 1,035 cliff, cautions Jordy Fuentes, executive director of the Arizona Power Authority, which markets Arizona\u2019s share of Hoover\u2019s electricity.<\/p>\n The rate that Arizona customers pay for Hoover hydropower includes not only the cost of operations and maintenance at the dam but also visitor center operations, ecosystem protections and repayment of the construction cost for the Central Arizona Project canal.<\/p>\n The consequences for the rate when generation drops amounts to basic math: less hydropower to sell means the price for each unit of electricity must increase to cover the fixed costs. Therefore, more expensive hydropower. Fuentes reckons the rate could triple, but the timing is uncertain.<\/p>\n \u201cWill there be a lag in how they recover those costs?\u201d Fuentes asks. \u201cOr is there a period of time with a hole in the budget?\u201d<\/p>\n Bradfield is having the same affordability conversations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are anticipating that the cost of hydropower will probably go up,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s another discussion that we\u2019re having both internally and in the West is how much and when does that get to a point where that resource is priced out by other resources? Because typically hydropower has been the cheapest.\u201d<\/p>\n Grid Strain<\/strong><\/p>\n Power customers are one area of concern. The other is the electricity grid itself.<\/p>\n Hydropower is valuable not just for the electricity it generates but also for maintaining a steady flow of power from source to home. Hydropower can respond almost instantly to changes in electricity demand, like those that happen in the early evening when air temperatures are hottest and people return from work to cook dinner, wash clothes and recharge their gadgets. It is an extremely inexpensive way to provide ramping services to the grid, said Nathalie Voisin of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.<\/p>\n Voisin said the Colorado River emergency is demonstrating the opportunities for more joint management of water and energy resources.<\/p>\n \u201cThis doesn\u2019t mean that the grid is going to go dark,\u201d Voisin said. \u201cIt just means that other resources are being used to compensate for those services, and it\u2019s just more expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n A drastic decline in Hoover\u2019s capacity will certainly have some grid effect. How large? That remains to be seen, said Katie Rogers, manager of reliability assessment for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.<\/p>\n WECC is a regional organization tasked with keeping an eye on the grid in the western states. Its grid reliability assessments feed into the big national reports from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2025-07-Lake-Mead-Hoover-Dam-BWalton-IMG_6652.CR2-Edit-2500-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
Eight turbines line the Nevada side of Hoover Dam\u2019s powerhouse. (Brett Walton\/Circle of Blue)<\/p>\n