Benton, IN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AMEREN ILLINOIS COMPANY, CARROLL-WHITE REMC, DUKE ENERGY INDIANA, LLC, EASTERN ILLINOIS ELEC COOP, JASPER COUNTY RURAL E M C, NEWTON COUNTY RURAL E M C, NORTHERN INDIANA PUB SERV CO, WARREN COUNTY RURAL E M C

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

12

Industrial retail rate

8.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 8 serving utilities: 6.3 to 8.6¢/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

3 projects, 520 MW

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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

63,019 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 Benton

Below, Benton in Indiana is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Benton reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 12 substations mapped, Benton has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Benton falls inside the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Benton is the 8.9 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Benton, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 8 serving utilities: 6.3 to 8.6¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Benton has 3 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 520 MW of requested capacity. Benton has 200.2 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Benton carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Benton are 1.35 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Benton, some 63,019 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources