Cedar, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BOARD OF WATER ELECTRIC & COMMUNICATIONS, CITY OF DURANT - (IA), CITY OF TIPTON - (IA), CITY OF WILTON, EASTERN IOWA LIGHT & POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, LINN COUNTY REC, MAQUOKETA VALLEY RRL ELEC COOP, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO, TIPTON MUNICIPAL ELECTRIC UTIL, WPPI ENERGY

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

115 kV

Substations in county

10

Industrial retail rate

7.2¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

6 of 11 serving utilities: 6.0 to 9.2¢/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

1 projects, 9 MW

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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

35,086 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 Cedar

Below, Cedar in Iowa is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Cedar reaches 115 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 10 substations mapped, Cedar has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Cedar falls inside the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Cedar is the 7.2 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Cedar, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 6 of 11 serving utilities: 6.0 to 9.2¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Cedar has 1 interconnection-queue project on record, totalling 9 MW of requested capacity. Cedar, Iowa has no EIA-860M generation on file, which reads as zero rather than as a gap. The balancing authority covering Cedar carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Cedar are 4.76 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Cedar, some 35,086 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

These numbers for Cedar are screening-grade context for the whole county, drawn from public data with the gaps left visible. Read the figures for Cedar, Iowa 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 Cedar, Iowa is an address-level interconnection study; the county figures here only narrow where to look. For Cedar, Iowa, the source log below records where each figure comes from and when it was pulled, keeping the provenance visible.

Sources