Branch, MI: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

COLDWATER BOARD OF PUBLIC UTIL, CONSUMERS ENERGY CO, LAGRANGE COUNTY RURAL E M C, MIDWEST ENERGY COOPERATIVE, NOBLE COUNTY R E M C, NORTHERN INDIANA PUB SERV CO, STEUBEN COUNTY RURAL E M C, VILLAGE OF UNION CITY - (MI), WOLVERINE POWER SUPPLY COOP

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

138 kV

Substations in county

16

Industrial retail rate

8.6¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 9 serving utilities: 6.6 to 9.1¢/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

17 projects, 3,380 MW

Proposed generation

100 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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

74,387 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 Branch

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Branch, Michigan that bears on a large new load. The strongest mapped access in Branch is 138 kV, squarely transmission class. Branch carries 16 substations in the mapped layer, spread across the county.

For Branch, the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 8.6 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Branch at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Branch that publish a rate range 2 of 9 serving utilities: 6.6 to 9.1¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Branch are 17 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 3,380.4 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 100 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Branch. Grid carbon intensity for Branch, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Branch at 24.45 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Branch, about 74,387 people are employed in construction (BLS QCEW), which speaks to how far crews for a multi-year build would travel, not to labour known to be free.

Read the Branch figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Branch, Michigan qualify one another, so grid access, substation density, market membership, and rate are meant to be read as a set, not in isolation. Past this screening view, siting in Branch, Michigan turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Branch, Michigan traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources