Sierra, NM: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

OTERO COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP INC, RIO GRANDE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, SIERRA ELECTRIC COOP, INC

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

5

Industrial retail rate

5.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

1 of 3 serving utilities: 14.3¢/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

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

394 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

5,171 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 Sierra

Everything here about Sierra, New Mexico comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Sierra reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. Sierra, New Mexico carries a thin 5-substation footprint in the mapped layer, concentrating where a connection could land.

Sitting outside any organized market, Sierra, New Mexico handles interconnection through its utility rather than a central operator. The rate for Sierra is the 5.9 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Sierra, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 1 of 3 serving utilities: 14.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Sierra, New Mexico in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. Sierra, New Mexico has no EIA-860M generation on file, which reads as zero rather than as a gap. The balancing authority covering Sierra carries a grid carbon intensity of 394.248 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Sierra are 36.29 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Sierra, some 5,171 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources