Cottonwood, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BROWN COUNTY RURAL ELEC ASSN, CITY OF BIGELOW - (MN), CITY OF MOUNTAIN LAKE - (MN), CITY OF WESTBROOK, CITY OF WINDOM, FEDERATED RURAL ELECTRIC ASSN, NOBLES COOPERATIVE ELECTRIC, REDWOOD ELECTRIC COOP, SOUTH CENTRAL ELECTRIC ASSN

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

69 kV

Substations in county

30

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

2 of 9 serving utilities: 6.6 to 7.5¢/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

10 projects, 1,866 MW

Proposed generation

200 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

11,099 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 Cottonwood

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Cottonwood, Minnesota that bears on a large new load. Cottonwood reaches 69 kV at most, which is sub-transmission and typically feeds distribution circuits. Cottonwood carries 30 substations, a dense footprint across the county.

For Cottonwood, the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 9.3 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Cottonwood at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Cottonwood that publish a rate range 2 of 9 serving utilities: 6.6 to 7.5¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Cottonwood are 10 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 1,866 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 200 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Cottonwood. Grid carbon intensity for Cottonwood, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Cottonwood at 4.16 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Cottonwood, about 11,099 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 Cottonwood figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Cottonwood, Minnesota 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 Cottonwood, Minnesota turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Cottonwood, Minnesota traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources