Polk, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF CARLISLE- (IA), CLARKE ELECTRIC COOP INC - (IA), CONSUMERS ENERGY, GUTHRIE COUNTY RURAL E C A, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, MIDAMERICAN ENERGY CO, MIDLAND POWER COOP

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

58

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

4 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.2¢/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

2 projects, 340 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

37,574 employed in construction within ~120 km (31 of 33 counties reporting)A 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 Polk

Read on for the public power picture of Polk in Iowa, assembled for data center siting. At 345 kV, Polk carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Polk contains 58 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

Wholesale activity over Polk clears through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Polk carries the state industrial average retail rate of 7.2 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Polk, the per-utility spread is 4 of 7 serving utilities: 6.0 to 8.2¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Polk carries 2 projects in the interconnection queue, totalling 340 MW of requested capacity. For Polk, Iowa, the EIA-860M inventory shows no planned or under-construction generation, a measured absence. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Polk shows 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Polk, the USGS 2015 compilation records 58.87 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Polk sits within commuting range of roughly 37,574 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Polk here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Polk, Iowa settles a site on its own; each one qualifies the others, and all of them come from public federal and state datasets. Settling a site in Polk, Iowa requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Polk, Iowa are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources