After being destroyed during World War II to make it harder for advancing German forces to cross the river and to hamstring their occupation by removing 19% of regional network capacity[1], it was rebuilt from 1944 to 1950.

On 22 March 2024, after the Dnipro Dam was hit by Russian missiles, power output at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station came to a halt.

Projects for flooding the rapids were proposed by N. Lelyavsky in 1893, V. Timonov(RU) in 1894, S. Maximov and Genrikh Graftio in 1905, A. Rundo and D. Yuskevich in 1910, I. Rozov and L. Yurgevich in 1912, Mohylko.

[3][4] While the main objective of these projects was to improve navigation, hydroelectric power generation was developed concurrently, in terms of the "utilization of the freely flowing water".

The Dneprostroi Dam was built on vacated land in the countryside at the old river crossing known as Kichkas just north of Khortytsia island.

The design for the dam that was accepted dates back to the USSR GOELRO electrification plan which was adopted in the early 1920s.

[6] The DniproHES project used the experience gained from the construction of the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations at Niagara Falls, Ontario, the Hydroelectric Island Maligne, Quebec, and the La Gabelle Generating Station on the St. Maurice River.

In a speech to the Komsomol youth movement, he said:[8] The dam and its buildings were designed by the constructivist architects Viktor Vesnin and Nikolai Kolli.

During World War II, the strategically important dam and plant were dynamited by retreating Red Army troops in 1941 after Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union.

The Dnieper Dam when it was built was the biggest on earth and so it occupied a place in the imagination and affection of the Soviet people difficult for us to realize ... Stalin's order to destroy it meant more to the Russians emotionally than it would mean to us for Roosevelt to order the destruction of the Panama Canal.The resulting flood killed between 20,000 and 100,000 civilians, along with Red Army officers crossing the river at the time.

[14] On 22 March 2024, the dam and its power station was struck by eight missiles[15] launched by Russia as part of a massive attack on energy infrastructure across Ukraine.