Des Moines, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

ACCESS ENERGY COOP, AMEREN ILLINOIS COMPANY, CITY OF DANVILLE - (IA), EASTERN IOWA LIGHT & POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

161 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

3 of 5 serving utilities: 6.9 to 8.2¢/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

5 projects, 340 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

23,453 employed in construction within ~120 km (31 of 32 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 Des Moines

Everything here about Des Moines, Iowa comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Des Moines reaches 161 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 10 substations mapped, Des Moines has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Des Moines falls inside the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Des Moines is the 7.2 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Des Moines, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 3 of 5 serving utilities: 6.9 to 8.2¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Des Moines has 5 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 340 MW of requested capacity. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Des Moines, Iowa, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Des Moines carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Des Moines are 108.61 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Des Moines, some 23,453 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources