Providence, RI: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CONNECTICUT LIGHT & POWER CO, FITCHBURG GAS & ELEC LIGHT CO, MASSACHUSETTS BAY TRANS AUTHORITY, MASSACHUSETTS ELECTRIC CO, NSTAR ELECTRIC COMPANY, PASCOAG UTILITY DISTRICT, THE NARRAGANSETT ELECTRIC CO, TOWN OF BRAINTREE - (MA), TOWN OF NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH - (MA)

ISO / market

ISONE (ISO New England)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

70

Industrial retail rate

21.7¢/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: 12.4 to 16.5¢/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

None on record

Proposed generation

4 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

541 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

221,694 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 Providence

The sections below set out what public data shows about siting a large electrical load in Providence, Rhode Island. At 345 kV, Providence carries high-voltage transmission at its strongest mapped point. Providence contains 70 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

Wholesale activity over Providence clears through the ISONE market (ISO New England), whose footprint sets how interconnection requests and capacity are handled. Providence carries the state industrial average retail rate of 21.7 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Providence, the per-utility spread is 2 of 9 serving utilities: 12.4 to 16.5¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

Providence, Rhode Island shows no interconnection-queue project in the covered feeds, whether from real quiet or a feed not yet loaded. In Providence, 3.5 MW is filed as planned or under construction in the federal EIA-860M inventory. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Providence shows 541.365 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Providence, the USGS 2015 compilation records 88.35 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Providence sits within commuting range of roughly 221,694 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

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

Sources