Mercer, IL: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AMEREN ILLINOIS COMPANY, EASTERN IOWA LIGHT & POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

2

Industrial retail rate

10.1¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 4 serving utilities: 1.6 to 5.1¢/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

3 projects, 493 MW

Proposed generation

40 MW planned or under constructionUnits 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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

28,215 employed in construction within ~120 kmA 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 Mercer

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Mercer, Illinois that bears on a large new load. The highest mapped voltage in Mercer is 345 kV, in the high-voltage transmission class. Across Mercer, Illinois, the mapped layer holds just 2 substations, so options gather at a handful of places.

For Mercer, the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 10.1 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Mercer at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Mercer that publish a rate range 2 of 4 serving utilities: 1.6 to 5.1¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Mercer are 3 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 493.24 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 40 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Mercer. Grid carbon intensity for Mercer, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Mercer at 6.43 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Mercer, about 28,215 people are employed in construction (BLS QCEW), which speaks to how far crews for a multi-year build would travel, not to labour known to be free.

Read the Mercer figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Mercer, Illinois qualify one another, so grid access, substation density, market membership, and rate are meant to be read as a set, not in isolation. Past this screening view, siting in Mercer, Illinois turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Mercer, Illinois traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources