Buffalo, WI: data center power outlook

Grid position at a glance

Serving utilities

EAU CLAIRE ELECTRIC COOP, MIENERGY COOPERATIVE, NORTHERN STATES POWER CO, NORTHERN STATES POWER CO - MINNESOTA, PEOPLE'S COOPERATIVE SERVICES, PIERCE-PEPIN COOP SERVICES, RIVERLAND ENERGY COOPERATIVE, WPPI ENERGY

ISO / market

MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator)

Highest grid access

345 kV

Substations in county

24

Industrial retail rate

8.9¢/kWhState-level EIA-861 industrial average. The map colours by this, not by a per-county rate.

Per-utility rates in county

2 of 8 serving utilities: 8.5 to 9.7¢/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

1 projects, 150 MW

Proposed generation

3 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

982 lb CO2/MWh

Water withdrawals

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 Water already withdrawn locally, not water available for a new load.

Construction labor near site

34,743 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 Buffalo

The material below frames Buffalo, Wisconsin for a prospective large load, drawing only on public sources. Grid access in Buffalo extends to 345 kV, a high-voltage line class. The mapped layer packs 24 substations into Buffalo, a dense spread of options.

Interconnection over Buffalo runs through the MISO market (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) and its rules. For Buffalo, the rate shown is the state industrial average of 8.9 cents per kWh (EIA-861), a state figure and not a county-specific one. Beneath that state average, the utilities serving Buffalo that report an industrial rate span 2 of 8 serving utilities: 8.5 to 9.7¢/kWh, shown as context and never as the county rate.

The queue feeds show 1 project for Buffalo, totalling 150 MW of requested capacity. EIA-860M records 3 MW planned or under construction for Buffalo. Buffalo sits under a balancing authority that eGRID puts at 981.982 lb CO2 per MWh.

Buffalo withdrew 239 million gallons per day for all uses in the USGS 2015 data, which counts demand, not headroom. About 34,743 people are employed in construction within a 120 km commute of Buffalo (BLS QCEW), which frames staffing distance rather than free labour.

For Buffalo, treat this as screening-grade county context useful for narrowing a search rather than settling a site. Taken together, the figures for Buffalo, Wisconsin describe the grid around a prospective site, drawn from public data with their gaps left visible on purpose. To move past screening in Buffalo, Wisconsin, a specific address needs its own interconnection study, which this page does not attempt. The figures for Buffalo, Wisconsin refresh as their public datasets do, and the exact sources and dates sit in the source log below this section.

Sources