Brown, SD: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOP, CITY OF GROTON - (SD), CITY OF HECLA, DAKOTA VALLEY ELEC COOP INC, FEM ELECTRIC ASSN, INC, LAKE REGION ELECTRIC ASSN, INC - (SD), MONTANA-DAKOTA UTILITIES CO, NORTHERN ELECTRIC COOP, INC, NORTHWESTERN ENERGY - (SD), OTTER TAIL POWER CO, TRAVERSE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

64

Industrial retail rate

8.7¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 12 serving utilities: 1.9 to 11.3¢/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

1 projects, 250 MW

Proposed generation

32 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

872 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

3,448 employed in construction within ~120 km (14 of 15 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 Brown

Everything here about Brown, South Dakota comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Brown reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 64 substations mapped, Brown offers interconnection points across many locations.

Brown falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Brown is the 8.7 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Brown, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 12 serving utilities: 1.9 to 11.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Brown has 1 interconnection-queue project on record, totalling 250 MW of requested capacity. Brown has 32 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Brown carries a grid carbon intensity of 871.526 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Brown are 14.61 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Brown, some 3,448 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources