Richland, ND: 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

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

400 kV

Substations in county

44

Industrial retail rate

7.5¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

6 of 10 serving utilities: 1.1 to 10.4¢/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

1 projects, 172 MW

Proposed generation

295 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

14,996 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 Richland

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Richland, North Dakota that bears on a large new load. The highest mapped voltage in Richland is 400 kV, in the high-voltage transmission class. Richland carries 44 substations, a dense footprint across the county.

For Richland, the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 7.5 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Richland at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Richland that publish a rate range 6 of 10 serving utilities: 1.1 to 10.4¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Richland are 1 interconnection-queue project, totalling 172 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 295.1 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Richland. Grid carbon intensity for Richland, via its balancing authority, is 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Richland at 5.82 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Richland, about 14,996 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 Richland figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Richland, North Dakota 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 Richland, North Dakota turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Richland, North Dakota traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources