Buchanan, VA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

APPALACHIAN POWER CO, KENTUCKY POWER CO, VIRGINIA ELECTRIC & POWER CO

ISO / market

PJM (PJM Interconnection)

Highest grid access

765 kV

Substations in county

31

Industrial retail rate

9.4¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 3 serving utilities: 6.0 to 9.9¢/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

716 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

17,635 employed in construction within ~120 km (36 of 43 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 Buchanan

Read on for the public power picture of Buchanan in Virginia, assembled for data center siting. At 765 kV, Buchanan carries extra-high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Buchanan contains 31 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

Wholesale activity over Buchanan clears through the PJM market (PJM Interconnection), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Buchanan carries the state industrial average retail rate of 9.4 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Buchanan, the per-utility spread is 2 of 3 serving utilities: 6.0 to 9.9¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

For Buchanan, Virginia, no queued project appears in the feeds currently covered. No generation is filed as planned or under construction in Buchanan, Virginia in the federal EIA-860M inventory, a measured zero rather than missing data. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Buchanan shows 716.09 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Buchanan, the USGS 2015 compilation records 1.84 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Buchanan sits within commuting range of roughly 17,635 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Buchanan here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Buchanan, Virginia 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 Buchanan, Virginia requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Buchanan, Virginia are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources