Suffolk, MA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

FITCHBURG GAS & ELEC LIGHT CO, MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANS AUTHORITY, MASSACHUSETTS ELECTRIC CO, NSTAR ELECTRIC COMPANY, TOWN OF BRAINTREE - (MA)

ISO / market

ISONE (ISO New England)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

16

Industrial retail rate

19.4¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 5 serving utilities: 7.6 to 15.1¢/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

None on record

Proposed generation

250 MW planned or under constructionUnits 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

541 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

202,427 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 Suffolk

Below, Suffolk in Massachusetts is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Suffolk reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 16 substations mapped, Suffolk has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Suffolk falls inside the ISONE market (ISO New England), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Suffolk is the 19.4 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Suffolk, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 5 serving utilities: 7.6 to 15.1¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Suffolk, Massachusetts in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. Suffolk has 250 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Suffolk carries a grid carbon intensity of 541.365 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Suffolk are 0.75 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Suffolk, some 202,427 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources