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Gridcensus

R S Nelson

Brownfield

Westlake, Calcasieu, Louisiana · Entergy Louisiana LLC

Legacy capacity
163
MW

R S Nelson is a natural gas plant in Westlake, Calcasieu, Louisiana, retired 2017-01-01. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 163 MW of generation, so the grid hookup, transmission rights, and often cooling-water access are already in place — collapsing the speed-to-power timeline versus a greenfield build.

Former use & capacity

Former usenatural gas plant
Site typeretired_plant
Existing capacity163 MW
Retirement date2017-01-01
EIA plant ID#1393

Grid hookup & remediation

Nearest substation0.1 mi
Operator address3500 Houston River Road, Westlake, LA, 70669
Why this site is datacenter-attractive: a natural gas plant of this scale leaves behind a high-capacity grid interconnection that a new load can re-use, frequently shaving years off the interconnection queue. Retired-plant sites also tend to be already zoned for heavy industrial use with established road, rail, and water infrastructure.

Site conditions & market — Calcasieu Parish

County-level intelligence for this site's location — the power economics, water, hazard, connectivity, and workforce a developer screens before ever visiting. Assembled from FEMA NRI, BLS QCEW, FCC BDC, USGS water-use, and EIA.

Market & workforce

Total employment (laborshed)75,000
IT / tech employment23
Construction employment8,379
Land value$3,891/acre
Datacenter tax incentivesales_tax_exemption

Power economics & interconnection

Commercial power rate13.24¢/kWh
Industrial power rate8.91¢/kWh
Load growth (FERC-714)1.0%

Water & cooling

Water stressLow
Public water supply27.5 MGD
Industrial water use170.1 MGD
Cooling degree days2,700
Mean annual temp67°F

Hazard, flood & connectivity

FEMA risk index58.0 · Very High
Fiber providers9 · 55% served

County-level context — address-level utility offerings and flood zoning vary within the county. Confirm site-specific service with the utility and a Phase I ESA.

Nearby brownfield & retired-generation sites

A proximity screen of other retired-plant, contaminated, and EPA-flagged sites near R S Nelson — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.

SiteFormer useLegacy MWDistanceCleanup status
Agrilectric Power Partners Ltdformer biomass site211.4 mi—

Derived from GridCensus's retired-generator & EPA brownfield dataset. Not a substitute for an ASTM E1527 Phase I environmental radius report.

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Nearby datacenter candidate sites

Scored candidate sites near R S Nelson, ranked by DC Readiness.

Candidate sites near R S Nelson
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
NELSONSubstation-AdjacentLACalcasieu Parish500 kV1,000 MW2.8 yrs62.2
UNKNOWN173166Substation-AdjacentLACalcasieu Parish500 kV1,000 MW2.8 yrs60.0
UNKNOWN173167Substation-AdjacentLACalcasieu Parish500 kV1,000 MW2.8 yrs59.9
UNKNOWN116527Substation-AdjacentLABeauregard Parish230 kV300 MW2.8 yrs56.1
EC Near R S NelsonGreenfieldLACalcasieu——1.4 yrs55.9
EC Near R S NelsonGreenfieldLACalcasieu——1.4 yrs55.9
UNKNOWN116398Substation-AdjacentLACalcasieu Parish230 kV300 MW2.8 yrs55.8
UNKNOWN116325Substation-AdjacentLACalcasieu Parish230 kV300 MW2.8 yrs55.8

See all datacenter sites in Louisiana →

Dataset updated . Screening estimates derived from public data sources.

Brownfield attributes are derived from EIA retired-generator and EPA public data. Existing capacity reflects the retired plant's historical nameplate, not deliverable interconnection for a new load. Confirm reusable interconnection rights, remediation status, and site availability with the utility, ISO, and current owner.

Go deeper than the public screen

Every site and score for R S Nelson, Westlake, Calcasieu, Louisiana is free to browse. Pro adds Watchtower on 25 sites, alerts when new candidate sites, datacenters or interconnection-queue requests appear in your markets, score and capacity history, and CSV export. Enterprise adds team seats, weekly data files for all 147,272 sites, the REST API and an MCP server for AI tools.