Otero, NM: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

EL PASO ELECTRIC CO, LEA COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP, INC, OTERO COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP INC, PUBLIC SERVICE CO OF NM, RIO GRANDE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, SIERRA ELECTRIC COOP, INC, SOUTHWESTERN PUBLIC SERVICE CO

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

21

Industrial retail rate

5.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

5 of 7 serving utilities: 4.5 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

None on record

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

394 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

21,086 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 Otero

What follows is a screening-grade read of Otero, New Mexico, built only from named public datasets. Grid access in Otero extends to 345 kV, a high-voltage line class. The mapped layer packs 21 substations into Otero, a dense spread of options.

Because Otero, New Mexico sits outside an organized market, capacity and interconnection are handled by the utility and bilateral deals, not a market operator. For Otero, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 5.9 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving Otero that report an industrial rate span 5 of 7 serving utilities: 4.5 to 14.3¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Otero, New Mexico in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. EIA-860M records 200 MW planned or under construction for Otero. Otero sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 394.248 lb CO2 per MWh.

Otero withdrew 30.97 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 21,086 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of Otero (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

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

Sources