Jefferson, TX: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CENTERPOINT ENERGY, ENTERGY LOUISIANA LLC, ENTERGY TEXAS INC., JASPER-NEWTON ELEC COOP, INC, JEFFERSON DAVIS ELEC COOP, INC, SAM HOUSTON ELECTRIC COOP INC, SAM RAYBURN MUNICIPAL PWR AGNY

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

138

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

3 of 7 serving utilities: 5.9 to 9.0¢/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, 4,096 MW

Proposed generation

754 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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

44,011 employed in construction within ~120 km (11 of 12 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 Jefferson

The sections below set out what public data shows about siting a large electrical load in Jefferson, Texas. At 345 kV, Jefferson carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Jefferson contains 138 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

Wholesale activity over Jefferson clears through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Jefferson carries the state industrial average retail rate of 6.5 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Jefferson, the per-utility spread is 3 of 7 serving utilities: 5.9 to 9.0¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Jefferson carries 13 projects in the interconnection queue, totalling 4,095.6 MW of requested capacity. In Jefferson, 754 MW is filed as planned or under construction in the federal EIA-860M inventory. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Jefferson shows 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Jefferson, the USGS 2015 compilation records 84.78 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Jefferson sits within commuting range of roughly 44,011 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Jefferson here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Jefferson, Texas settles a site on its own; each one qualifies the others, and all of them come from public federal and state datasets. Settling a site in Jefferson, Texas requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Jefferson, Texas are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources