Wilkin, MN: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

BASIN ELECTRIC POWER COOP, CASS COUNTY ELEC COOP INC, CITY OF BRECKENRIDGE- (MN), DAKOTA VALLEY ELEC COOP INC, 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

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

10

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

3 of 10 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

2 projects, 540 MW

Proposed generation

1 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

17,518 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 Wilkin

Read on for the public power picture of Wilkin in Minnesota, assembled for data center siting. At 345 kV, Wilkin carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Wilkin contains 10 mapped substations, a moderate footprint spread across the service area.

Wholesale activity over Wilkin clears through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Wilkin carries the state industrial average retail rate of 9.3 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Wilkin, the per-utility spread is 3 of 10 serving utilities: 5.4 to 14.3¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Wilkin carries 2 projects in the interconnection queue, totalling 540 MW of requested capacity. In Wilkin, 1 MW is filed as planned or under construction in the federal EIA-860M inventory. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Wilkin shows 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Wilkin, the USGS 2015 compilation records 0.88 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Wilkin sits within commuting range of roughly 17,518 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

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

Sources