Caldwell, TX: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AEP TEXAS CENTRAL COMPANY, BLUEBONNET ELECTRIC COOP, INC, CITY OF LOCKHART - (TX), CITY OF LULING - (TX), CITY OF SAN MARCOS - (TX), FAYETTE ELECTRIC COOP, INC, GUADALUPE VALLEY ELEC COOP INC, PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOP, INC, SAN BERNARD ELECTRIC COOP, INC

ISO / market

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

9

Industrial retail rate

6.5¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

6 of 9 serving utilities: 5.4 to 10.2¢/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

17 projects, 4,719 MW

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

734 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

156,578 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 Caldwell

Everything here about Caldwell, Texas comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Caldwell reaches 345 kV, a high-voltage transmission class, at its strongest mapped point of grid access. With 9 substations mapped, Caldwell has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Caldwell falls inside the ERCOT market (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Caldwell is the 6.5 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Caldwell, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 6 of 9 serving utilities: 5.4 to 10.2¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

Caldwell has 17 interconnection-queue projects on record, totalling 4,718.92 MW of requested capacity. Caldwell has 200 MW of planned or under-construction generation on file in EIA-860M. The balancing authority covering Caldwell carries a grid carbon intensity of 734.003 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Caldwell are 5.08 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Caldwell, some 156,578 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

These numbers for Caldwell are screening-grade context for the whole county, drawn from public data with the gaps left visible. Read the figures for Caldwell, Texas together rather than one at a time: grid access matters less without substations near it, and a quiet queue reads differently inside an organized market than outside one. The next step for Caldwell, Texas is an address-level interconnection study; the county figures here only narrow where to look. For Caldwell, Texas, the source log below records where each figure comes from and when it was pulled, keeping the provenance visible.

Sources