Plymouth, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF AKRON - (IA), CITY OF REMSEN - (IA), CITY OF SOUTH SIOUX CITY, IOWA LAKES ELECTRIC COOP, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO, NORTH WEST RURAL ELECTRIC COOP, SOUTHEASTERN ELECTRIC COOP INC - (SD), TOWN OF WESTFIELD - (IA), UNION COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP INC, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION, WOODBURY COUNTY RURAL E C A

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

40

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

3 of 11 serving utilities: 6.0 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, 600 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

24,393 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 Plymouth

Below, Plymouth in Iowa is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Plymouth reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 40 substations mapped, Plymouth offers interconnection points across many locations.

Plymouth falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Plymouth is the 7.2 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Plymouth, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 3 of 11 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.6¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Plymouth has 3 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 600 MW of requested capacity. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Plymouth, Iowa, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Plymouth carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Plymouth are 10.4 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Plymouth, some 24,393 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources