Dallas, TX: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF GARLAND - (TX), COOKE COUNTY ELEC COOP ASSN, DENTON COUNTY ELEC COOP, INC, FANNIN COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP, FARMERS ELECTRIC COOP, INC - (TX), GRAYSON-COLLIN ELEC COOP, INC, HILCO ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., NAVARRO COUNTY ELEC COOP, INC, ONCOR ELECTRIC DELIVERY COMPANY LLC, TEXAS-NEW MEXICO POWER CO, TRI-COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP, INC (TX), TRINITY VALLEY ELEC COOP INC, UNITED ELECTRIC COOP SERVICE INC - (TX), WISE ELECTRIC COOP INC

ISO / market

ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

267

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

10 of 14 serving utilities: 5.8 to 31.7¢/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

9 projects, 867 MW

Proposed generation

212 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

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

247,885 employed in construction within ~120 km (22 of 23 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 Dallas

This page gathers the public grid evidence for Dallas, Texas that bears on a large new load. The highest mapped voltage in Dallas is 345 kV, in the high-voltage transmission class. Dallas carries 267 substations, a dense footprint across the county.

For Dallas, the ERCOT market (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) is the operator that handles interconnection and capacity. The state industrial average retail rate is 6.5 cents per kWh, drawn from EIA-861 and applied to Dallas at the state level rather than as a county rate. The serving utilities in Dallas that publish a rate range 10 of 14 serving utilities: 5.8 to 31.7¢/kWh, a spread kept separate from the state average.

On record for Dallas are 9 interconnection-queue projects, totalling 866.8 MW of requested capacity. Federal filings (EIA-860M) list 212.3 MW of generation as planned or under construction in Dallas. Grid carbon intensity for Dallas, via its balancing authority, is 734.003 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

USGS 2015 puts freshwater withdrawals across Dallas at 419.61 million gallons per day for all uses, a measure of use, not spare supply. Within roughly a 120 km commute of Dallas, about 247,885 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 Dallas figures as screening-grade context: they describe the surrounding grid, not a specific parcel. The numbers for Dallas, Texas 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 Dallas, Texas turns on a study of a particular address, something no county-level page can stand in for. Every number shown for Dallas, Texas traces to a public source listed below, with its retrieval date, so the provenance is auditable rather than asserted.

Sources