McCook, SD: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CENTRAL ELECTRIC COOP, INC - (SD), NORTHERN STATES POWER CO - MINNESOTA, NORTHWESTERN ENERGY - (SD), OTTER TAIL POWER CO, SIOUX VALLEY SW ELEC COOP, SOUTHEASTERN ELECTRIC COOP INC - (SD), WAPA-- WESTERN AREA POWER ADMINISTRATION

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

22

Industrial retail rate

8.7¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

6 of 7 serving utilities: 1.9 to 9.4¢/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

2 projects, 100 MW

Proposed generation

99 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

872 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

21,499 employed in construction within ~120 km (27 of 28 counties reporting)A 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 McCook

This page gathers the public grid evidence for McCook, South Dakota that bears on a large new load. The strongest mapped access in McCook is 230 kV, squarely transmission class. McCook carries 22 substations, a dense footprint across the county.

For McCook, the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 8.7 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to McCook at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in McCook that publish a rate range 6 of 7 serving utilities: 1.9 to 9.4¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for McCook are 2 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 100 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 99 MW of generation as planned or under construction in McCook. Grid carbon intensity for McCook, via its balancing authority, is 871.526 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across McCook at 1.5 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of McCook, about 21,499 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 McCook figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for McCook, South 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 McCook, South Dakota turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for McCook, South Dakota traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources