Charles, MD: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

NORTHERN NECK ELEC COOP, INC, SOUTHERN MARYLAND ELEC COOP INC, VIRGINIA ELECTRIC & POWER CO

ISO / market

PJM (PJM Interconnection)

Highest grid access

500 kV

Substations in county

34

Industrial retail rate

12.5¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

No per-utility rate on fileLowest 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

None on record

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

716 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

269,312 employed in construction within ~120 km (52 of 53 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 Charles

Everything here about Charles, Maryland comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Charles reaches 500 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 34 substations mapped, Charles offers interconnection points across many locations.

Charles falls inside the PJM market (PJM Interconnection), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Charles is the 12.5 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by.

Across the covered feeds, Charles, Maryland carries no interconnection-queue project, from either real quiet or a feed not yet loaded. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Charles, Maryland, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Charles carries a grid carbon intensity of 716.09 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Charles are 12.48 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Charles, some 269,312 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources