Cerro Gordo, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BUTLER COUNTY RURAL ELEC COOP - (IA), FRANKLIN RURAL ELECTRIC COOP - (IA), FREEBORN MOWER ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, HEARTLAND POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO, PRAIRIE ENERGY COOP

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

161 kV

Substations in county

23

Industrial retail rate

7.2¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.7¢/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

13 projects, 2,975 MW

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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

17,407 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 Cerro Gordo

What follows is a screening-grade read of Cerro Gordo, Iowa, built only from named public datasets. At 161 kV, Cerro Gordo sits in the transmission class that a large load would look to. The mapped layer packs 23 substations into Cerro Gordo, a dense spread of options.

Interconnection over Cerro Gordo runs through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) and its rules. For Cerro Gordo, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 7.2 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving Cerro Gordo that report an industrial rate span 5 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.7¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

The queue feeds show 13 projects for Cerro Gordo, totalling 2,975.4 MW of requested capacity. Nothing is on file for Cerro Gordo, Iowa in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. Cerro Gordo sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

Cerro Gordo withdrew 11.18 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 17,407 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of Cerro Gordo (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

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

Sources