Big Stone, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AGRALITE ELECTRIC COOP, CITY OF BIG STONE CITY - (SD), CITY OF ORTONVILLE - (MN), H-D ELECTRIC COOP INC, MINNESOTA VALLEY COOP L&P ASSN, OTTER TAIL POWER CO, TRAVERSE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION, WHETSTONE VALLEY ELEC COOP INC

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

115 kV

Substations in county

20

Industrial retail rate

9.3¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

3 of 9 serving utilities: 5.4 to 9.0¢/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

3 projects, 850 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

9,482 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 Big Stone

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Big Stone, Minnesota that bears on a large new load. The strongest mapped access in Big Stone is 115 kV, squarely transmission class. Big Stone carries 20 substations in the mapped layer, spread across the county.

For Big Stone, the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 9.3 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Big Stone at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Big Stone that publish a rate range 3 of 9 serving utilities: 5.4 to 9.0¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Big Stone are 3 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 850 MW of requested capacity. For Big Stone, Minnesota, the EIA-860M inventory shows no planned or under-construction generation, a measured absence. Grid carbon intensity for Big Stone, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Big Stone at 1.83 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Big Stone, about 9,482 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 Big Stone figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Big Stone, Minnesota 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 Big Stone, Minnesota turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Big Stone, Minnesota traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources