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Gridcensus

Hills

Brownfield

Hills, Rock, Minnesota · Interstate Power and Light Co

Legacy capacity
4
MW

Hills is a oil plant in Hills, Rock, Minnesota, retired 2015-07-01. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 4 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 useoil plant
Site typeretired_plant
Existing capacity4 MW
Retirement date2015-07-01
EIA plant ID#1889

Grid hookup & remediation

Nearest substation0.1 mi
Operator addressHwy 270 West, Hills, MN, 56138
Why this site is datacenter-attractive: a oil 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 — Rock County

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)2,833
Construction employment118
Land value$8,831/acre
Datacenter tax incentivesales_tax_exemption

Power economics & interconnection

Commercial power rate15.46¢/kWh
Industrial power rate9.75¢/kWh
Load growth (FERC-714)0.7%

Water & cooling

Water stressLow
Public water supply1.5 MGD
Industrial water use0.0 MGD
Cooling degree days600
Mean annual temp42°F

Hazard, flood & connectivity

FEMA risk index25.0 · Relatively Moderate
Fiber providers7 · 67% 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 Hills — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.

SiteFormer useLegacy MWDistanceCleanup status
Pathfindernatural gas plant7514.6 mi—
Luvernenatural gas plant311.9 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 Hills, ranked by DC Readiness.

Candidate sites near Hills
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
SPLIT ROCKSubstation-AdjacentSDMinnehaha County345 kV600 MW3.3 yrs71.0
SIOUX FALLSSubstation-AdjacentSDMinnehaha County230 kV300 MW3.3 yrs69.2
EC Near PathfinderGreenfieldSDMinnehaha——1.0 yrs68.7
EC Near PathfinderGreenfieldSDMinnehaha——1.0 yrs67.7
EC Near PathfinderGreenfieldSDMinnehaha——1.0 yrs67.5
EC Near PathfinderGreenfieldSDMinnehaha——1.0 yrs67.3
UNKNOWN131292Substation-AdjacentSDMinnehaha County115 kV100 MW3.3 yrs66.0
EC Near PathfinderGreenfieldSDMinnehaha——1.0 yrs66.0

Nearby internet exchanges

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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 Hills, Hills, Rock, Minnesota 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.