Meade, SD: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BLACK HILLS ELECTRIC COOP, INC, BLACK HILLS POWER, INC., BUTTE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, CITY OF AURORA - (SD), CITY OF FAITH - (SD), GRAND ELECTRIC COOP, INC, MONTANA-DAKOTA UTILITIES CO, MOREAU-GRAND ELECTRIC COOP INC, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION, WEST RIVER ELECTRIC ASSN INC

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

15

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

5 of 10 serving utilities: 1.9 to 18.6¢/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

872 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

7,617 employed in construction within ~120 km (7 of 8 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 Meade

Everything here about Meade, South Dakota comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Meade reaches 230 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 15 substations mapped, Meade has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Meade falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Meade is the 8.7 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Meade, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 5 of 10 serving utilities: 1.9 to 18.6¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

The covered queue feeds list nothing for Meade, South Dakota, which may be quiet or simply uningested. Meade, South Dakota has no EIA-860M generation on file, which reads as zero rather than as a gap. The balancing authority covering Meade carries a grid carbon intensity of 871.526 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Meade are 6.72 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Meade, some 7,617 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources