Nevada, CA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

LIBERTY UTILITIES, PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO., SIERRA PACIFIC POWER CO, TRUCKEE DONNER P U D, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION

ISO / market

CAISO (California Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

120 kV

Substations in county

16

Industrial retail rate

21.6¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 5 serving utilities: 2.9 to 21.1¢/kWhLowest to highest industrial rate among the utilities serving this county (EIA-861 Sales to Ultimate Customers). A spread, not the county’s rate, and it covers only the serving utilities that report one.

Interconnection queue

None on record

Proposed generation

None on file (EIA-860M)Units filed with EIA as planned or under construction (Form EIA-860M). Declared intent from the federal inventory, not the interconnection queue and not guaranteed capacity.

Grid carbon intensity

369 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

63 Mgal/dAll uses, freshwater. Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

91,708 employed in construction within ~120 km (12 of 13 counties reporting)A large build needs hundreds of skilled construction workers on site for one to three years. A county with few of them within commuting range means bussing crews in, per diem, and housing, which is real cost and schedule risk. This counts people employed in construction within about a 120 km drive (BLS QCEW), summed across nearby counties. It is not labor known to be available: most are already committed to other projects, and no public data reveals who is free.

Grid conditions in Nevada

Below, Nevada in California is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Nevada reaches 120 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 16 substations mapped, Nevada has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Nevada falls inside the CAISO market (California Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Nevada is the 21.6 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Nevada, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 2 of 5 serving utilities: 2.9 to 21.1¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Nevada, California in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. Nevada, California has no EIA-860M generation on file, which reads as zero rather than as a gap. The balancing authority covering Nevada carries a grid carbon intensity of 369.346 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Nevada are 63.36 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Nevada, some 91,708 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

These numbers for Nevada are screening-grade context for the whole county, drawn from public data with the gaps left visible. Read the figures for Nevada, California together rather than one at a time: grid access matters less without substations near it, and a quiet queue reads differently inside an organized market than outside one. The next step for Nevada, California is an address-level interconnection study; the county figures here only narrow where to look. For Nevada, California, the source log below records where each figure comes from and when it was pulled, keeping the provenance visible.

Sources