Upcoming Hydel (Hydropower) Projects in Pakistan — The Complete 2026 Pipeline
Pakistan holds one of the largest untapped hydel (hydropower) resources in the world — an estimated 60,000MW of gross potential, of which only around 10,635MW has been developed to date. That means roughly 82% of the country’s economically viable hydel potential remains unharnessed. Yet Pakistan is now in the middle of its most significant hydel construction phase in decades, with several mega projects under simultaneous development that will collectively double the nation’s hydropower capacity by 2030. This guide covers the major upcoming and under-construction hydel projects in Pakistan — their capacity, location, status, financing and the engineering and infrastructure realities that shape their timelines — building on our earlier overview of Pakistan’s broader hydel sector.
Pakistan’s Hydel Potential — The Scale of What Remains
Pakistan’s total hydel (hydropower) potential is estimated at approximately 59,796MW gross, with around 41,045MW considered both technically and economically viable. Against this enormous resource, the country has developed only about 10,635MW connected to the national grid — approximately 9,389MW managed by WAPDA in the public sector and around 1,246MW developed by Independent Power Producers in the private sector. Hydropower contributes roughly 24% of Pakistan’s total installed generation capacity, making it the single largest source of clean, low-cost electricity in the national mix.
The geographic distribution of this potential is heavily concentrated in the north. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa holds an estimated 14,000MW of hydel potential, Gilgit-Baltistan around 11,700MW, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir approximately 1,300MW — together accounting for the overwhelming majority of the country’s viable sites. Punjab offers a limited additional potential of around 350MW from small, low-head hydel projects on its canal network. This northern concentration is a direct consequence of geography — the steep gradients, high flows and substantial head available where the Indus and its major tributaries descend from the Himalayas, Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges toward the plains.
Pakistan has set a target of expanding hydel capacity to approximately 20GW by 2030 — a near doubling of current capacity. Whether that target is achieved depends less on the availability of viable sites, which is abundant, and more on the pace of financing, construction and the resolution of the infrastructure and access challenges that define hydel development in remote mountain terrain. WAPDA is currently executing eight mega projects in the water and hydropower sectors, expected to collectively double national hydel generation by 2030.
Diamer Bhasha Dam — 4,500MW
The Diamer Bhasha Dam is the largest and most strategically significant hydel (hydropower) project currently under construction in Pakistan. Located on the Indus River between Kohistan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Diamer district in Gilgit-Baltistan, approximately 315km upstream of the Tarbela Dam, it will be the tallest roller-compacted concrete dam in the world at 272 metres. The project is designed to store 8.1 million acre-feet of water — around 6.4 MAF of live storage — generate 4,500MW of hydel power producing approximately 18,100 GWh annually, and extend the operational life of the downstream Tarbela Dam by an estimated 35 years by reducing sedimentation.
Construction of the dam is being undertaken by a joint venture of China Power and the Frontier Works Organisation under a contract signed in May 2020. The project features two powerhouses and eight generating units. Beyond power generation, Diamer Bhasha is central to Pakistan’s water security strategy — its storage will help reduce the national water shortage and provide critical flood mitigation for downstream communities along the Indus.
A significant engineering and delivery reality shapes this project. International contractors showed limited interest in the hydropower component due to the project’s location and associated concerns, with the result that the first stage of construction has focused on the dam and associated infrastructure, while the 4,500MW hydropower generation component is planned for subsequent years. This staging — building the dam first and deferring the powerhouse and electromechanical works to a later phase — is a defining characteristic of the Diamer Bhasha timeline and explains why the dam’s completion and its full power generation capability are separated by a considerable period. Budget allocation pressures have also raised concerns about maintaining the project’s construction schedule, with the pace of federal development funding directly affecting whether milestone timelines are met.
Dasu Hydropower Project — 4,320MW
The Dasu Hydropower Project is one of the largest run-of-river hydel (hydropower) developments in the world, located on the Indus River near Dasu in Kohistan district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — approximately 74km downstream of the Diamer Bhasha site and 240km upstream of Tarbela. Developed by WAPDA as a key component of the Water Vision 2025 programme, the project has a total planned capacity of 4,320MW, being built in two stages of 2,160MW each. The main civil works are being undertaken by China Gezhouba Group Company.
Stage I, with an installed capacity of 2,160MW and annual generation of approximately 12 billion units, is currently under construction with substantial international financing — the World Bank has committed over $1.5 billion to the project, with additional financing approved in 2024. The project involves a roller-compacted concrete gravity dam, an underground powerhouse, the installation of six turbo-generators in Stage I, and a double-circuit 500kV transmission line to evacuate the generated power. Stage I is targeted to begin commercial electricity generation by late 2027, though the pace of development and funding allocation continue to influence the precise timeline.
The Dasu project illustrates a common characteristic of major run-of-river hydel developments — the very large annual energy output relative to installed capacity, achieved through consistent Indus flows, combined with the multi-decade development timeline required to construct a project of this scale in challenging mountain terrain. The project’s original feasibility study was completed in 2009, with preparatory works beginning in 2015 and main civil works in 2018 — a timeline that reflects the genuine complexity of mobilizing and constructing a project of this magnitude.
Mohmand Dam Hydropower Project — 800MW
The Mohmand Dam Hydropower Project is being constructed on the Swat River in Mohmand district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is a multi-purpose project designed to store 1.29 million acre-feet of water, generate 800MW of hydel (hydropower) electricity, and supply 300 million gallons of water per day to Peshawar for municipal use. The dam also provides critical flood protection for the downstream urban areas of Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera — a genuine concern given the flooding these regions have experienced historically.
The contract for the Mohmand dam and hydropower project was awarded in March 2019, with construction being undertaken with Chinese involvement at a cost of approximately $1.9 billion. Financing has been supported by international partners including the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development and the Islamic Development Bank. Among the major under-construction projects, Mohmand is one of the nearer-term additions to the national grid, being counted among the capacity expected to achieve commercial operations within the current development window.
Mohmand demonstrates the multi-purpose value that characterizes many of Pakistan’s hydel projects — combining power generation with water storage, municipal water supply and flood control in a single integrated development. This multi-purpose framing is often central to the financing and justification of major hydel projects, since the benefits extend well beyond electricity generation into water and food security.
Tarbela 5th Extension — 1,530MW
The Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project adds 1,530MW of hydel (hydropower) generation capacity to the existing Tarbela Dam complex on the Indus River — one of the most efficient forms of hydel expansion available, since it uses water already stored and regulated by an existing dam rather than requiring a new reservoir. On completion, the extension will raise Tarbela’s total installed power generation capacity from 4,888MW to 6,418MW.
Construction is progressing on the intake structure, connecting tunnel, penstock, low-level outlet, powerhouse, tailrace culvert, tailrace canal and switchyard. The World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are providing $390 million and $300 million respectively toward construction. The electromechanical works contract was awarded in 2021, and the project’s target commissioning timeline has been revised to 2026.
Extensions to existing dams like Tarbela represent some of the most attractive hydel investments in Pakistan’s portfolio. Because the dam, reservoir and much of the associated water infrastructure already exist, the incremental cost per megawatt of adding generation capacity is significantly lower than for a greenfield project, and the environmental and social impacts are minimal since no new reservoir or resettlement is required. The successive extensions to Tarbela — the fourth extension added 1,410MW, and now the fifth adds 1,530MW — demonstrate how much additional generation can be extracted from existing hydel infrastructure through well-engineered capacity additions.
Private Sector Hydel Projects — The IPP Pipeline
Alongside the WAPDA-led public sector mega projects, a growing pipeline of private sector hydel (hydropower) projects is advancing under the Independent Power Producer model. Privately developed hydel projects in Pakistan typically use run-of-river technology under a Build, Own, Operate and Transfer structure with a concession period of around 30 years, after which ownership transfers to the state. These projects require significant upfront capital but offer very low operational costs over their long operating lives.
Pakistan’s IPP hydel sector has already delivered several significant projects. The 147MW Patrind plant on the Kunhar River in Azad Jammu and Kashmir was commissioned in 2017, the 102MW Gulpur station on the Poonch River in 2020, and the 720MW Karot project on the Jhelum River in 2022 — the latter being the first hydropower project completed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The 884MW Suki Kinari project on the Kunhar River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became operational more recently, also under CPEC. These IPP projects, collectively contributing over 1,200MW, are frequently overlooked in headline figures that focus only on WAPDA’s public sector capacity — yet they represent a genuine and growing share of Pakistan’s hydel generation.
Several further private sector projects are in various stages of development. The 100MW Kotli project on the Poonch River in AJK is slated for commissioning, while projects including Turlonas-Uzghar at 82MW, Ashkot at 300MW and Rajdhani at 132MW are planned for later in the decade. These projects face a distinct set of challenges compared to public sector developments — provincial water-use charges, high financing costs, complex land acquisition, and the general investment risk environment — but they also demonstrate that private capital continues to see viable returns in Pakistan’s hydel sector.
Why Pakistan’s Hydel Projects Take So Long — The Infrastructure Reality
A recurring feature of Pakistan’s hydel (hydropower) pipeline is the extended timeline between a project’s identification and its commissioning — frequently measured in decades rather than years. Understanding why requires looking beyond the projects themselves to the infrastructure and access realities of developing hydel power in remote, high-altitude mountain terrain.
The concentration of Pakistan’s hydel potential in Gilgit-Baltistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern mountain regions means that the most promising sites are also the most physically difficult to reach and develop. Access roads must often be constructed or upgraded before major construction can begin. Heavy equipment, turbines, generators and transformers weighing hundreds of tonnes must be transported over mountain routes never designed for such loads. The Karakoram Highway — the primary land route through the northern regions — becomes a critical dependency for any project relying on it for equipment delivery, and its condition and capacity directly influence what can be built and when.
A particularly instructive example of infrastructure sequencing is the way major projects depend on one another. When a large dam creates a reservoir, it can submerge existing roads — requiring those roads to be realigned before other upstream projects that depend on them can proceed. This creates chains of dependency where one project’s access infrastructure must be resolved before another can begin, independent of either project’s individual technical readiness or financing status. Projects that are technically designed, financially assessed and ready to build can remain unbuilt for years not because of any flaw in the project itself, but because the enabling infrastructure sequence has not yet been completed.
Financing pace is the other major determinant of timeline. Pakistan’s major hydel projects depend heavily on international development finance — the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Islamic Development Bank and bilateral partners. The pace at which this financing is secured and disbursed, combined with the level of domestic development budget allocation, directly governs construction speed. When federal development budget allocations fall short of what major projects require, construction slows and milestone timelines slip — a tension that has repeatedly affected the schedules of Pakistan’s largest hydel developments.
Geological complexity adds further uncertainty. Tunneling through the young, tectonically active and often unpredictable rock of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges routinely produces unexpected ground conditions that slow construction and increase costs. Seismic design requirements, revised during construction of some projects to reflect updated hazard assessments, have added both complexity and cost. These are not failures of planning — they are the genuine engineering realities of building major infrastructure in one of the most geologically dynamic regions on earth.
The Longevity of Hydel Infrastructure — A Pakistani Legacy
One of the most compelling arguments for continued hydel (hydropower) investment in Pakistan is the extraordinary longevity of the infrastructure already built. Several small hydel plants commissioned in the 1950s and early 1960s — including Rasul, Kurram Garhi, Chichoki and Shadiwal — remain operational today, generating electricity after more than six decades of service without major refurbishment or overhaul. This durability stands in stark contrast to thermal power plants, which typically require major overhaul or replacement within 25 to 30 years.
Pakistan’s larger hydel assets similarly demonstrate world-class operational longevity. The Tarbela units, with a cumulative capacity of thousands of megawatts, and the 1,450MW Ghazi Barotha project continue to operate at high standards of availability decades after commissioning. This reflects both the inherent durability of well-designed hydel infrastructure and the accumulated operational and maintenance expertise that Pakistani engineers have developed across generations of projects — expertise built through partnerships with international suppliers from Canada, Germany, Italy, Austria and other countries during the country’s early hydel development, and now increasingly through domestic capability and partnerships with Chinese manufacturers.
This longevity fundamentally changes the economics of hydel investment. A hydel project’s high upfront capital cost is amortized over an operational life that can extend well beyond half a century — and often, with periodic rehabilitation, beyond that. The recurring annual costs are minimal compared to thermal generation, and hydel plants save substantial foreign exchange that would otherwise be spent importing fuel. When Mangla generates at a fraction of the per-unit cost of imported-fuel thermal generation, and continues doing so decade after decade, the long-term value of hydel infrastructure becomes clear. Every new project in the current pipeline is not just a source of power for the coming years — it is an asset likely to be serving Pakistan’s grid well into the next century.
Field Engineer’s Perspective on Pakistan’s Hydel Pipeline
Pakistan’s current hydel (hydropower) construction phase represents the most significant expansion of the country’s hydropower capacity in decades — Diamer Bhasha, Dasu, Mohmand, Tarbela’s fifth extension and a growing IPP pipeline collectively promising to nearly double national hydel generation. The engineering ambition is genuine, and the projects are real, funded and under active construction. Yet the pattern across the entire pipeline is consistent — timelines measured in decades, costs that escalate as geological and seismic realities emerge during construction, and completion dates that depend as much on financing pace and infrastructure sequencing as on any individual project’s technical merit.
The deferral of Diamer Bhasha’s power generation component to a later stage, the staged construction of Dasu, the extended timelines of even well-financed projects — these are not anomalies. They are the defining characteristics of major hydel development in the northern mountain regions, where every project contends with remote access, extreme terrain, geological uncertainty and the sequencing dependencies that link one project’s infrastructure to another’s viability. The engineer working on these projects learns quickly that the powerhouse and the turbine are only part of the challenge — the access road, the transmission corridor, the financing tranche and the seismic reassessment are equally determinative of whether and when a project delivers power.
What remains beyond dispute is the scale of the opportunity. With roughly 82% of economically viable hydel potential still unharnessed, Pakistan holds one of the largest remaining hydel development opportunities in the world. Realizing it will require not just the mega projects currently under construction, but sustained investment, resolved infrastructure sequencing, consistent financing and the accumulated engineering discipline that turns a technically feasible site into reliable generation on the grid. The projects in today’s pipeline are the current chapter of a development story that will continue for generations.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s upcoming hydel (hydropower) pipeline — anchored by Diamer Bhasha at 4,500MW, Dasu at 4,320MW, Mohmand at 800MW, Tarbela’s 5th Extension at 1,530MW and a growing private sector IPP portfolio — represents a genuine and substantial expansion of the nation’s hydropower capacity. Against a total potential of around 60,000MW, of which only about 10,635MW is currently developed, these projects mark meaningful progress toward the country’s target of 20GW of hydel capacity by 2030. The challenges are real — extended timelines, financing constraints, infrastructure sequencing and the genuine engineering complexity of building in remote mountain terrain — but so is the opportunity. For engineers, developers and policymakers tracking South Asia’s hydel sector, Pakistan’s pipeline is among the most significant anywhere in the region.
For more on the region’s hydel sector and the engineering behind these projects explore our complete guides on Hydel Power in India, Hydel Power in Nepal and Hydropower Commissioning.What “Water to Wire” Actually Includes — And What It Doesn’t
