St. James, LA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

DIXIE ELECTRIC MEMBERSHIP CORP, ENTERGY LOUISIANA LLC, POINTE COUPEE ELEC MEMBER CORP, SOUTH LOUISIANA ELEC COOP ASSN, WASHINGTON-ST TAMMANY E C, INC

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

500 kV

Substations in county

9

Industrial retail rate

6.2¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 serving utilities: 5.2 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

10 projects, 1,088 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

92,042 employed in construction within ~120 km (23 of 24 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 St. James

What follows is a screening-grade read of St. James, Louisiana, built only from named public datasets. Grid access in St. James extends to 500 kV, a high-voltage line class. The mapped layer places 9 substations across St. James, a moderate density.

Interconnection over St. James runs through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) and its rules. For St. James, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 6.2 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving St. James that report an industrial rate span 5 serving utilities: 5.2 to 15.3¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

The queue feeds show 10 projects for St. James, totalling 1,088 MW of requested capacity. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for St. James, Louisiana, which is a national filing and so a real zero. St. James sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

St. James withdrew 184.09 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 92,042 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of St. James (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

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

Sources