Waseca, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BENCO ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, CITY OF JANESVILLE - (MN), CITY OF WASECA - (MN), FREEBORN MOWER ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, MINNESOTA VALLEY ELECTRIC COOP, NORTHERN STATES POWER CO - MINNESOTA, STEELE-WASECA COOPERATIVE ELECTRIC

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

161 kV

Substations in county

10

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

4 of 7 serving utilities: 8.7 to 9.7¢/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

5 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

84,851 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 Waseca

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Waseca, Minnesota that bears on a large new load. The strongest mapped access in Waseca is 161 kV, squarely transmission class. Waseca carries 10 substations in the mapped layer, spread across the county.

For Waseca, 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 Waseca at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Waseca that publish a rate range 4 of 7 serving utilities: 8.7 to 9.7¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

Waseca, Minnesota shows no interconnection-queue project in the covered feeds, whether from real quiet or a feed not yet loaded. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 5 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Waseca. Grid carbon intensity for Waseca, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Waseca at 3.85 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Waseca, about 84,851 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 Waseca figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Waseca, 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 Waseca, Minnesota turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Waseca, Minnesota traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources