Georgia to build 1,000 MW of hydropower capacity costing $1.7 bln

TBILISI. Aug 31 (Interfax) - Georgian companies are building several hydropower plants with total capacity of 360 MW at a cost of $500 million, the country's Economy Ministry said in a press release.

"These hydropower plants are at various stages of construction, some of them in the final stages. In addition to the 360 MW under construction, projects with a total installed capacity of over 1,000 MW and costing $1.7 billion are at the feasibility study stage," it said.

The additional capacity is being built to achieve the strategic goal of ensuring Georgia's complete energy independence by 2036, it said.

Priority will be given to reservoir-type hydro power plants when building new capacity. These will store and make use of water resources during the winter, when Georgia is forced to import electricity due to low river levels.

"In parallel with energy development projects, the state is also carrying out projects to strengthen the country's power grid. The ministry's strategy includes building and modernizing substations and transmission lines, which should ease the integration of new generating capacity into the grid and improve energy system stability," the press release says.

The capacity of Georgia's energy system is set to more than double over the next decade, increasing from the current 4,621 MW to 10,336 MW by 2034 through expanded hydro power plant capacity and intensified construction of wind farms and solar power plants, according to a ten-year development plan published at the end of 2024.

The government in October last year canceled over 50 projects to build hydropower plants, wind farms and solar power plants with total capacity of 1.75 GW. Georgia included these projects in its energy mix for future years and in its ten-year development plan. The government said a significant proportion of the projects were called off because there were no diagrams to show how they would be connected to the grid in the rationale, and no assessment of the grid's capacity to take in the electricity produced.

Georgia was affected by a series of blackouts at the end of July this year to work at the Inguri HPP in Abkhazia, which supplies up to 70% of Georgia's electricity. The Inguri plant is the only large dam with a reservoir capable of regulating generation independently of water inflow. Georgia's other hydropower plants are run-of-river plants, and their generation drops in the summer when water inflow decreases amid rising demand for electricity due to air conditioning.

Power consumption in Georgia rose 5.1% year-on-year in H1 2026 to 7.3 billion kWh. Imports rose to 31.1% of total electricity supplies, from 25.8% in H1 2025.