This list is concerned with severe and abnormal power outages which caused major power failures due to damage to the hydro site itself or its connections. Any electric grid is vulnerable to instability after the loss of a large generating source or transmission line. Every generating station trips from time to time however some hydro electric power stations can be exceptionally large in respect to connected grid capacity so any failure for these proportionally large stations can be more problematic than the failure of a thermal or nuclear station. A serious failure in a proportionally large hydro electric generating station or its associated transmission line will remove a large block of power from the grid that may lead to widespread and in some cases long-term disturbances.

List of failures

Plant	Location	Description	Year	Reference
Herdecke Herdecke Herdecke is a town in the district of Ennepe-Ruhr-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. Its located south of Dortmund in the Ruhr Area and is known as Die Stadt zwischen den Ruhrseen ....  (de:Koepchenwerk)	Ruhr Ruhr The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...	132 MW power generation loss, due to overtopping after failure of Mohne dam	1943
Mohne Dam	Ruhr	5 MW power generation loss, 1500 fatalities, due to enemy bombing	1943
Sui-ho, Fusen, Kyosen and Choshin Dams Attack on the Sui-ho Dam The attack on the Sui-ho Dam was the collective name for a large series of air attacks by United Nations Command air forces on thirteen hydroelectric generating facilities that took place June 23 and June 24, 1952, during the Korean War...	Korea	due to enemy bombing, attacked during the Korean War Korean War The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...  resulting in the loss of approximately 90% of North Korea's generation capacity	1952
Banqiao Dam Banqiao Dam The Banqiao Reservoir Dam is a dam on the River Ru in Zhumadian Prefecture, Henan province, China. It infamously failed in 1975, causing more casualties than any other dam failure in history, and was subsequently rebuilt....	China	26000 flooding fatalities, loss of generation, dam failed by overtopping	1975
Bieudron Hydroelectric Power Station	Switzerland	1269 MW loss, penstock Penstock A penstock is a sluice or gate or intake structure that controls water flow, or an enclosed pipe that delivers water to hydraulic turbines and sewerage systems. It is a term that has been inherited from the technology of wooden watermills....  rupture, three fatalities, flooding and loss of generating capacity	2000
Itaipu Dam	Brazil	18 GW power generation loss due to storm damage of transmission lines,	2009	see also: 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout The 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout was a power outage that occurred throughout much of Brazil and for a short time the entirety of Paraguay, on Tuesday, November 10, 2009, at approximately 22:15 BST...
Sayano–Shushenskaya Dam	Russia	2009 Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro accident 2009 Sayano-Shushenskaya hydro accident The 2009 Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station accident occurred at 00:13 GMT on 17 August 2009, when turbine 2 of the Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station broke apart violently... , 6 GW power generation loss, 75 fatalities, due to turbine failure	2009
Manitoba Hydro Manitoba Hydro Manitoba Hydro is the electric power and natural gas utility in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1961, it is a provincial Crown Corporation, governed by the Manitoba Hydro-Electric Board and the Manitoba Hydro Act. Today the company operates 15 interconnected generating stations. It has...  Grand Rapids Unit 1	Manitoba Manitoba Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...	head cover failure, 452 MW loss,	1992
Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station	Missouri	pumped storage failed by overtopping, 450 MW,	2005

See also

• Dam failure
• List of power outages
• Hydraulic engineering
  Hydraulic engineering
  This article is about civil engineering. For the mechanical engineering discipline see Hydraulic machineryHydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive...
  
  
• Hydroelectricity
  Hydroelectricity
  Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...