AI data center site finder

The site score adds six capped parts to a number out of 100. It ranks counties to look at first; it is not a site appraisal, says nothing about a given parcel, and only the utility's load study can say how much power a site can take and when.

1. Transmission (25 points). Highest substation voltage in the county (500 kV and up 15 points, 345 kV 12, 230 kV 8, 115-161 kV 4), plus 2 points per substation at 230 kV or more, up to 10. Substations are inferred from where HIFLD transmission lines end: ends within 500 m are merged, and a point counts where three or more lines meet or the line records name it.
2. Generation pipeline (20 points). New generation and storage seeking to connect in the county: active ISO queue requests, or EIA-860M planned generators where that is larger (the only pipeline data outside the seven ISOs). Up to 15 points on a square-root scale reaching full marks at 5 GW, plus up to 5 for MW with a signed interconnection agreement or under construction (full at 1 GW). New supply nearby is where co-location and grid upgrades happen.
3. Industrial power price (20 points). The state’s average industrial electricity price, year to date (EIA). The cheapest states score 20, the most expensive 0, in a straight line between the 5th and 95th percentile of states.
4. Existing and retiring plants (15 points). Operating generation in the county, up to 9 points (full at 2 GW, square root), plus up to 6 for plants retired in the last five years or scheduled to retire in the next five (full at 1 GW): their interconnection and land can be reused.
5. Sales tax exemption (10 points). 10 points where a data center program in force removes the state’s own sales and use tax on data center equipment in full (local taxes may still apply, as in Texas); 5 where it removes only part of the state tax: an abatement down to a reduced rate (Nevada’s, to 2%), an abatement of part of the tax, or a refund of part of it; 4 where a program is pending or paused; 0 otherwise. A state is scored on its main program, not on smaller partial tiers.
6. Data center activity (10 points). GPU-ready colocation facilities (1 point each), bitcoin mining sites (3 each) and announced AI campuses (4 each), up to 10. Also a proxy for fiber, which has no free county-level dataset.

Counties are placed by the county each source names, and anything with coordinates (transmission line ends, and power plants in Connecticut, whose sources still name the counties it replaced with planning regions in 2022) by the 2024 Census county shapes; colocation facilities and mining sites, which are listed by city, are placed by the Census location of the city. Requests a queue lists without a county count toward the state and ISO totals only. Power prices are state averages (EIA, July 2026 YTD): what a large load pays depends on its utility tariff or contract.