Winnebago, IA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF FOREST CITY- (IA), FEDERATED RURAL ELECTRIC ASSN, FREEBORN MOWER ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, HEARTLAND POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, IOWA LAKES ELECTRIC COOP, PRAIRIE ENERGY COOP

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

69 kV

Substations in county

18

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: 6.7 to 15.3¢/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, 620 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

15,115 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 Winnebago

Everything here about Winnebago, Iowa comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. The highest mapped voltage in Winnebago is 69 kV, a sub-transmission class that usually serves distribution rather than a single large load. With 18 substations mapped, Winnebago has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Winnebago falls inside the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Winnebago is the 7.2 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Winnebago, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 5 of 7 serving utilities: 6.7 to 15.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Winnebago has 3 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 620 MW of requested capacity. Nothing is on file for Winnebago, Iowa in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. The balancing authority covering Winnebago carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Winnebago are 2.85 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Winnebago, some 15,115 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources