Clay, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CASS COUNTY ELEC COOP INC, CITY OF BARNESVILLE - (MN), CITY OF MOORHEAD - (MN), HAWLEY PUBLIC UTILITIES COMM, LAKE REGION ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE - (MN), NORTHERN STATES POWER CO - MINNESOTA, OTTER TAIL POWER CO, RED RIVER VALLEY COOP PWR ASSN, TRAVERSE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION, WILD RICE ELECTRIC COOP, INC

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

27

Industrial retail rate

9.3¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 of 11 serving utilities: 5.4 to 14.3¢/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

4 projects, 959 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

16,850 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 Clay

Everything here about Clay, Minnesota comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Clay reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 27 substations mapped, Clay offers interconnection points across many locations.

Clay falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Clay is the 9.3 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Clay, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 5 of 11 serving utilities: 5.4 to 14.3¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Clay has 4 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 959.4 MW of requested capacity. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Clay, Minnesota, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Clay carries a grid carbon intensity of 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Clay are 7.66 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Clay, some 16,850 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources