Faribault, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BENCO ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, BLUE EARTH LIGHT & WATER, CITY OF DUNNELL - (MN), CITY OF WELLS - (MN), FEDERATED RURAL ELECTRIC ASSN, FREEBORN MOWER ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, HEARTLAND POWER COOP, INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT CO, IOWA LAKES ELECTRIC COOP, NORTHERN STATES POWER CO - MINNESOTA, STEELE-WASECA COOPERATIVE ELECTRIC

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

161 kV

Substations in county

28

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: 7.5 to 9.7¢/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

9 projects, 1,395 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

20,558 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 Faribault

What follows is a screening-grade read of Faribault, Minnesota, built only from named public datasets. At 161 kV, Faribault sits in the transmission class that a large load would look to. The mapped layer packs 28 substations into Faribault, a dense spread of options.

Interconnection over Faribault runs through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) and its rules. For Faribault, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 9.3 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving Faribault that report an industrial rate span 5 of 11 serving utilities: 7.5 to 9.7¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

The queue feeds show 9 projects for Faribault, totalling 1,395 MW of requested capacity. Nothing is on file for Faribault, Minnesota in EIA-860M as planned or under construction, which counts as a measured zero. Faribault sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

Faribault withdrew 2.67 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 20,558 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of Faribault (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

For Faribault, treat this as screening-grade county context useful for narrowing a search rather than settling a site. Taken together, the figures for Faribault, Minnesota describe the grid around a prospective site, drawn from public data with their gaps left visible on purpose. To move past screening in Faribault, Minnesota, a specific address needs its own interconnection study, which this page does not attempt. The figures for Faribault, Minnesota refresh as their public datasets do, and the exact sources and dates sit in the source log below this section.

Sources