Pend Oreille, WA: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

AVISTA CORP, BONNEVILLE POWER ADMINISTRATION, FORTISBC, INLAND POWER & LIGHT COMPANY, NORTHERN LIGHTS, INC, PUD NO 1 OF PEND OREILLE COUNTY

ISO / market

NON_ISO (Not in an organized wholesale market)

Highest grid access

230 kV

Substations in county

15

Industrial retail rate

6.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

4 of 5 serving utilities: 1.3 to 7.8¢/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

359 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

24,260 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 Pend Oreille

Below, Pend Oreille in Washington is described from public data as a starting point for siting diligence. Pend Oreille reaches 230 kV at its highest mapped voltage, a transmission class that can carry a substantial interconnection where capacity exists. With 15 substations mapped, Pend Oreille has a moderate spread of interconnection points.

Because Pend Oreille, Washington sits outside an organized market, capacity and interconnection are handled by the utility and bilateral deals, not a market operator. The rate for Pend Oreille is the 6.9 cents per kWh state industrial average (EIA-861), the same figure the map colours by. Across Pend Oreille, reported per-utility industrial rates cover 4 of 5 serving utilities: 1.3 to 7.8¢/kWh, offered only as context beneath the state figure.

No interconnection-queue project is on record for Pend Oreille, Washington in the covered feeds, which reflects either genuine quiet or a queue not yet ingested. EIA-860M lists nothing planned or under construction for Pend Oreille, Washington, which is a national filing and so a real zero. The balancing authority covering Pend Oreille carries a grid carbon intensity of 358.777 lb CO2 per MWh in eGRID.

Reported freshwater withdrawals for all uses in Pend Oreille are 3.19 million gallons per day in the USGS 2015 compilation, existing demand rather than water free for a new load. Around Pend Oreille, some 24,260 people work in construction within about a 120 km commute (BLS QCEW), a measure of reach, not of available crews.

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

Sources