Caldwell, NC: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BLUE RIDGE ELEC MEMBER CORP - (NC), DUKE ENERGY CAROLINAS, LLC, DUKE ENERGY PROGRESS - (NC), ENERGYUNITED ELEC MEMBER CORP, NEW RIVER LIGHT & POWER CO, RUTHERFORD ELEC MEMBER CORP, TOWN OF GRANITE FALLS - (NC)

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

30

Industrial retail rate

7.8¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 of 7 serving utilities: 5.8 to 8.0¢/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

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

485 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

117,786 employed in construction within ~120 km (41 of 44 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 Caldwell

The sections below set out what public data shows about siting a large electrical load in Caldwell, North Carolina. Transmission-class access reaches 230 kV in Caldwell at its strongest mapped point. Caldwell contains 30 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

Caldwell, North Carolina lies outside an organized wholesale market, so generation and transmission are arranged bilaterally and through the local utility rather than a central market operator. Caldwell carries the state industrial average retail rate of 7.8 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Caldwell, the per-utility spread is 5 of 7 serving utilities: 5.8 to 8.0¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Caldwell, North Carolina has nothing in the interconnection queue across the feeds covered here, quiet or uningested. For Caldwell, North Carolina, the EIA-860M inventory shows no planned or under-construction generation, a measured absence. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Caldwell shows 484.617 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Caldwell, the USGS 2015 compilation records 16.1 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Caldwell sits within commuting range of roughly 117,786 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Caldwell here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Caldwell, North Carolina 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 Caldwell, North Carolina requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Caldwell, North Carolina are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources