Gaines, TX: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

CITY OF BROWNFIELD - (TX), LEA COUNTY ELECTRIC COOP, INC, LYNTEGAR ELECTRIC COOP, INC, ONCOR ELECTRIC DELIVERY COMPANY LLC, SOUTHWESTERN PUBLIC SERVICE CO

ISO / market

SPP (Southwest Power Pool)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

40

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

3 of 5 serving utilities: 4.9 to 8.9¢/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

872 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

21,850 employed in construction within ~120 km (12 of 15 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 Gaines

Everything here about Gaines, Texas comes from public federal and state records, with the gaps left visible. Gaines reaches 230 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 40 substations mapped, Gaines offers interconnection points across many locations.

Gaines falls inside the SPP market (Southwest Power Pool), which governs how its interconnection requests and capacity move. The rate for Gaines is the 6.5 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Gaines, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 3 of 5 serving utilities: 4.9 to 8.9¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

The covered queue feeds list nothing for Gaines, Texas, which may be quiet or simply uningested. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Gaines, Texas, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Gaines carries a grid carbon intensity of 871.526 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Gaines are 292.26 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Gaines, some 21,850 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

These numbers for Gaines are screening-grade context for the whole county, drawn from public data with the gaps left visible. Read the figures for Gaines, 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 Gaines, Texas is an address-level interconnection study; the county figures here only narrow where to look. For Gaines, Texas, the source log below records where each figure comes from and when it was pulled, keeping the provenance visible.

Sources