Yakima, WA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BENTON RURAL ELECTRIC ASSN, BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION, CITY OF MILTON - (WA), PACIFICORP, PENINSULA LIGHT COMPANY, PUD NO 1 OF BENTON COUNTY, PUD NO 1 OF KITTITAS COUNTY, PUD NO 1 OF KLICKITAT COUNTY, PUD NO 1 OF LEWIS COUNTY, PUD NO 2 OF GRANT COUNTY, PUGET SOUND ENERGY INC

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

500 kV

Substations in county

54

Industrial retail rate

6.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

8 of 11 serving utilities: 1.3 to 8.3¢/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

80 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

307 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

40,883 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 Yakima

Below, Yakima in Washington is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Yakima reaches 500 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 54 substations mapped, Yakima offers interconnection points across many locations.

Because Yakima, Washington sits outside an organized market, capacity and interconnection are handled by the utility and bilateral deals, not a market operator. The rate for Yakima is the 6.9 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Yakima, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 8 of 11 serving utilities: 1.3 to 8.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Yakima, Washington in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. Yakima has 80 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Yakima carries a grid carbon intensity of 306.81 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Yakima are 455.99 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Yakima, some 40,883 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources