Beaufort, SC: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

COASTAL ELECTRIC COOP, INC, DOMINION ENERGY SOUTH CAROLINA, INC, PALMETTO ELECTRIC COOP INC

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

71

Industrial retail rate

7.1¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 3 serving utilities: 7.4 to 8.8¢/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

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

745 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

42,217 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 Beaufort

Read on for the public power picture of Beaufort in South Carolina, assembled for data center siting. Transmission-class access reaches 230 kV in Beaufort at its strongest mapped point. Beaufort contains 71 mapped substations, a dense footprint that spreads interconnection options across many points.

No organized wholesale market covers Beaufort, South Carolina, so capacity moves through the local utility and bilateral agreements. Beaufort carries the state industrial average retail rate of 7.1 cents per kWh from EIA-861, applied statewide. For Beaufort, the per-utility spread is 2 of 3 serving utilities: 7.4 to 8.8¢/kWh, which qualifies but never replaces the state average.

For Beaufort, South Carolina, no queued project appears in the feeds currently covered. For Beaufort, South Carolina, the EIA-860M inventory shows no planned or under-construction generation, a measured absence. In eGRID, the balancing authority over Beaufort shows 745.159 lb CO2 per MWh.

For Beaufort, the USGS 2015 compilation records 18.97 million gallons per day of all-use freshwater withdrawals, not water available to a new load. Beaufort sits within commuting range of roughly 42,217 construction workers (BLS QCEW, about 120 km), most already committed elsewhere.

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

Sources