Sutter, CA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC CO., SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTIL DIST, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION

ISO / market

CAISO (California Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

500 kV

Substations in county

20

Industrial retail rate

21.6¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

3 serving utilities: 2.9 to 21.1¢/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

200 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

369 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

122,900 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 Sutter

Below, Sutter in California is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Sutter reaches 500 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 20 substations mapped, Sutter has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Sutter falls inside the CAISO market (California Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Sutter is the 21.6 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Sutter, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 3 serving utilities: 2.9 to 21.1¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Across the covered feeds, Sutter, California carries no interconnection-queue project, from either real quiet or a feed not yet loaded. Sutter has 200 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Sutter carries a grid carbon intensity of 369.346 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Sutter are 659.69 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Sutter, some 122,900 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources