Houghton, MI: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF CRYSTAL FALLS, DTE ELECTRIC COMPANY, NORTHERN STATES POWER CO, ONTONAGON COUNTY R E A, UPPER MICHIGAN ENERGY RESOURCES CORP., UPPER PENINSULA POWER COMPANY, VILLAGE OF BARAGA - (MI), VILLAGE OF L'ANSE - (MI), WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER CO, WPPI ENERGY

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

138 kV

Substations in county

8

Industrial retail rate

8.6¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 10 serving utilities: 5.3 to 7.6¢/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

7 projects, 408 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

5,415 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 Houghton

Read on for the public power picture of Houghton in Michigan, assembled for data center siting. Transmission-class access reaches 138 kV in Houghton at its strongest mapped point. Houghton contains 8 mapped substations, a moderate footprint spread across the service area.

Wholesale activity over Houghton clears through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Houghton carries the state industrial average retail rate of 8.6 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Houghton, the per-utility spread is 4 of 10 serving utilities: 5.3 to 7.6¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Houghton carries 7 projects in the interconnection queue, totalling 407.5 MW of requested capacity. No generation is filed as planned or under construction in Houghton, Michigan in the federal EIA-860M inventory, a measured zero rather than missing data. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Houghton shows 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Houghton, the USGS 2015 compilation records 4.55 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Houghton sits within commuting range of roughly 5,415 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

Every figure for Houghton here is screening-grade and describes the county as a whole, not any single parcel within it. None of the figures for Houghton, Michigan 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 Houghton, Michigan requires a study of the specific parcel, a step beyond the county-level picture drawn here. Sources and data dates for Houghton, Michigan are logged directly below, so each figure on this page can be traced back to its public dataset.

Sources