Cherokee, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF AURELIA - (IA), INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, IOWA LAKES ELECTRIC COOP, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO, NORTH WEST RURAL ELECTRIC COOP, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION, WOODBURY COUNTY RURAL E C A

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

22

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

4 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.6¢/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

2 projects, 300 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

15,488 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 Cherokee

Everything here about Cherokee, Iowa comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Cherokee reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 22 substations mapped, Cherokee offers interconnection points across many locations.

Cherokee falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Cherokee is the 7.2 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Cherokee, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.6¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Cherokee has 2 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 300.3 MW of requested capacity. Nothing is on file for Cherokee, Iowa in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. The balancing authority covering Cherokee carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Cherokee are 5.81 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Cherokee, some 15,488 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources