Montcalm, MI: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CONSUMERS ENERGY CO, DTE ELECTRIC COMPANY, GREAT LAKES ENERGY COOP, TRI-COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP (MI), WOLVERINE POWER SUPPLY COOP

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

19

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 5 serving utilities: 6.6 to 10.5¢/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

12 projects, 2,146 MW

Proposed generation

300 MW planned or under constructionUnits 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

69,085 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 Montcalm

For Montcalm, Michigan, the following sections turn public grid records into a siting-oriented summary. The highest mapped voltage in Montcalm is 345 kV, in the high-voltage transmission class. Montcalm carries 19 substations in the mapped layer, spread across the county.

For Montcalm, the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 8.6 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Montcalm at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Montcalm that publish a rate range 4 of 5 serving utilities: 6.6 to 10.5¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Montcalm are 12 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 2,146.4 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 300 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Montcalm. Grid carbon intensity for Montcalm, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Montcalm at 56.55 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Montcalm, about 69,085 people are employed in construction (BLS QCEW), which speaks to how far crews for a multi-year build would travel, not to labour known to be free.

Read the Montcalm figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Montcalm, Michigan qualify one another, so grid access, substation density, market membership, and rate are meant to be read as a set, not in isolation. Past this screening view, siting in Montcalm, Michigan turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Montcalm, Michigan traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources