Austin, TX: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AEP TEXAS CENTRAL COMPANY, BLUEBONNET ELECTRIC COOP, INC, CENTERPOINT ENERGY, CITY OF BELLVILLE - (TX), CITY OF HEMPSTEAD - (TX), ENTERGY TEXAS INC., FAYETTE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, GUADALUPE VALLEY ELEC COOP INC, JACKSON ELECTRIC COOP, INC - (TX), MID-SOUTH ELECTRIC COOP ASSN, SAN BERNARD ELECTRIC COOP, INC, WHARTON COUNTY ELEC COOP, INC

ISO / market

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

9

Industrial retail rate

6.5¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

8 of 12 serving utilities: 5.4 to 10.2¢/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

13 projects, 3,729 MW

Proposed generation

800 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

734 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

230,850 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 Austin

Below, Austin in Texas is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Austin reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 9 substations mapped, Austin has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Austin falls inside the ERCOT market (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Austin is the 6.5 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Austin, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 8 of 12 serving utilities: 5.4 to 10.2¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Austin has 13 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 3,729.17 MW of requested capacity. Austin has 800 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Austin carries a grid carbon intensity of 734.003 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Austin are 8.97 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Austin, some 230,850 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources