Washington, OR: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION, CITY OF FOREST GROVE, COLUMBIA RIVER PEOPLES UT DIST, PORTLAND GENERAL ELECTRIC CO, TILLAMOOK PEOPLES UTILITY DIST, WEST OREGON ELECTRIC COOP INC

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

500 kV

Substations in county

94

Industrial retail rate

8.3¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 6 serving utilities: 5.4 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

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

0 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

103,558 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 Washington

Below, Washington in Oregon is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Washington reaches 500 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 94 substations mapped, Washington offers interconnection points across many locations.

Washington, Oregon is not inside an organized market, which leaves interconnection to the utility and bilateral contracts. The rate for Washington is the 8.3 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Washington, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 6 serving utilities: 5.4 to 7.9¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

The covered queue feeds list nothing for Washington, Oregon, which may be quiet or simply uningested. Nothing is on file for Washington, Oregon in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. The balancing authority covering Washington carries a grid carbon intensity of 0 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Washington are 203.8 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Washington, some 103,558 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources