The hydraulic loss due to friction and unstable flow patterns in hydro-turbines causes a drop in their efficiency. The traditional method for analyzing the hydraulic loss is by evaluating the pressure drop, which has certain limitations and cannot determine the exact locations at which the high hydraulic loss occurs. In this study, entropy production theory was adopted to obtain a detailed distribution of the hydraulic loss in a pump-turbine in the pump mode. In the past, the wall effects of entropy production were not considered, which caused larger errors as compared with the method of pressure difference. First, a wall equation was proposed to calculate the hydraulic loss in the wall region. The comparison of hydraulic loss calculated by entropy production and pressure difference revealed a better result. Then, through the use of the entropy production theory, the performance characteristics were determined for a pump-turbine with 19 mm guide vane opening, and the variation in the entropy production was obtained. Recently, an interesting phenomenon, i.e., a hysteresis characteristic, was observed in the hump region in pump turbines. Research shows that the hysteresis characteristic is a result of the Euler momentum and hydraulic loss; the hydraulic loss accounts for a major portion of the hysteresis characteristic. Finally, the hysteresis characteristic in the hump region was analyzed in detail through the entropy production. The results showed that the hump characteristic and the accompanying hysteresis phenomenon are caused by backflow at the runner inlet and the presence of separation vortices close to the hub and the shroud in the stay/guide vanes, which is dependent on the direction of discharge. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.