Nelson, VA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

APPALACHIAN POWER CO, BARC ELECTRIC COOP INC, CENTRAL VIRGINIA ELECTRIC COOP, SHENANDOAH VALLEY ELEC COOP, VIRGINIA ELECTRIC & POWER CO

ISO / market

PJM (PJM Interconnection)

Highest grid access

138 kV

Substations in county

10

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

4 of 5 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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.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

41,808 employed in construction within ~120 km (40 of 46 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 Nelson

What follows is a screening-grade read of Nelson, Virginia, built only from named public datasets. At 138 kV, Nelson sits in the transmission class that a large load would look to. The mapped layer places 10 substations across Nelson, a moderate density.

Interconnection over Nelson runs through the PJM market (PJM Interconnection) and its rules. For Nelson, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 9.4 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving Nelson that report an industrial rate span 4 of 5 serving utilities: 6.0 to 9.9¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Nelson, Virginia in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Nelson, Virginia, which is a national filing and so a real zero. Nelson sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 716.09 lb CO2 per MWh.

Nelson withdrew 1.81 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 41,808 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of Nelson (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

For Nelson, treat this as screening-grade county context useful for narrowing a search rather than settling a site. Taken together, the figures for Nelson, Virginia describe the grid around a prospective site, drawn from public data with their gaps left visible on purpose. To move past screening in Nelson, Virginia, a specific address needs its own interconnection study, which this page does not attempt. The figures for Nelson, Virginia refresh as their public datasets do, and the exact sources and dates sit in the source log below this section.

Sources