Berkshire, MA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CONNECTICUT LIGHT & POWER CO, GREEN MOUNTAIN POWER CORP, MASSACHUSETTS ELECTRIC CO, NEW YORK STATE ELEC & GAS CORP, NSTAR ELECTRIC COMPANY

ISO / market

ISONE (ISO New England)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

23

Industrial retail rate

19.4¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 5 serving utilities: 9.2 to 9.3¢/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

None on record

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

541 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

127,531 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 Berkshire

Below, Berkshire in Massachusetts is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Berkshire reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 23 substations mapped, Berkshire offers interconnection points across many locations.

Berkshire falls inside the ISONE market (ISO New England), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Berkshire is the 19.4 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Berkshire, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 2 of 5 serving utilities: 9.2 to 9.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

The covered queue feeds list nothing for Berkshire, Massachusetts, which may be quiet or simply uningested. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Berkshire, Massachusetts, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Berkshire carries a grid carbon intensity of 541.365 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Berkshire are 27.74 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Berkshire, some 127,531 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources