Valencia, NM: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CENTRAL NEW MEXICO EL COOP, INC, CONTINENTAL DIVIDE EL COOP INC, PUBLIC SERVICE CO OF NM, SOCORRO ELECTRIC COOP, INC

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

6

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

3 of 4 serving utilities: 5.6 to 7.9¢/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

203 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

394 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

27,814 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 Valencia

The sections below set out what public data shows about siting a large electrical load in Valencia, New Mexico. At 345 kV, Valencia carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Valencia contains 6 mapped substations, a moderate footprint spread across the service area.

Valencia, New Mexico lies outside an organized wholesale market, so generation and transmission are arranged bilaterally and through the local utility rather than a central market operator. Valencia carries the state industrial average retail rate of 5.9 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Valencia, the per-utility spread is 3 of 4 serving utilities: 5.6 to 7.9¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Valencia, New Mexico shows no interconnection-queue project in the covered feeds, whether from real quiet or a feed not yet loaded. In Valencia, 203 MW is filed as planned or under construction in the federal EIA-860M inventory. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Valencia shows 394.248 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Valencia, the USGS 2015 compilation records 139.87 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Valencia sits within commuting range of roughly 27,814 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Valencia here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Valencia, New Mexico settles a site on its own; each one qualifies the others, and all of them come from public federal and state datasets. Settling a site in Valencia, New Mexico requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Valencia, New Mexico are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources