Lexington, SC: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AIKEN ELECTRIC COOP INC, DOMINION ENERGY SOUTH CAROLINA, INC, DUKE ENERGY CAROLINAS, LLC, MID-CAROLINA ELECTRIC COOP INC, TRI-COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP, INC (SC)

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

96

Industrial retail rate

7.1¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 serving utilities: 7.2 to 11.2¢/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

745 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

43,455 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 Lexington

Below, Lexington in South Carolina is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Lexington reaches 230 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 96 substations mapped, Lexington offers interconnection points across many locations.

Sitting outside any organized market, Lexington, South Carolina handles interconnection through its utility rather than a central operator. The rate for Lexington is the 7.1 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Lexington, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 5 serving utilities: 7.2 to 11.2¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Lexington, South Carolina in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. Nothing is on file for Lexington, South Carolina in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. The balancing authority covering Lexington carries a grid carbon intensity of 745.159 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Lexington are 236.88 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Lexington, some 43,455 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources