Howard, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

FREEBORN MOWER ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, HEARTLAND POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, MIENERGY COOPERATIVE

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

6

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 4 serving utilities: 6.7 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, 705 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

21,157 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 Howard

Read on for the public power picture of Howard in Iowa, assembled for data center siting. At 345 kV, Howard carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Howard contains 6 mapped substations, a moderate footprint spread across the service area.

Wholesale activity over Howard clears through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Howard carries the state industrial average retail rate of 7.2 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Howard, the per-utility spread is 3 of 4 serving utilities: 6.7 to 8.2¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Howard carries 5 projects in the interconnection queue, totalling 705 MW of requested capacity. For Howard, Iowa, the EIA-860M inventory shows no planned or under-construction generation, a measured absence. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Howard shows 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Howard, the USGS 2015 compilation records 5.13 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Howard sits within commuting range of roughly 21,157 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Howard here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Howard, Iowa settles a site on its own; each one qualifies the others, and all of them come from public federal and state datasets. Settling a site in Howard, Iowa requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Howard, Iowa are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources