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Gridcensus

MU Combined Heat and Power Plant

Brownfield

Columbia, Boone, Missouri · Curators of the University of Missouri

Legacy capacity
6
MW

MU Combined Heat and Power Plant is a natural gas plant in Columbia, Boone, Missouri, retired 2023-10-01. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 6 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 capacity6 MW
Retirement date2023-10-01
EIA plant ID#50969

Grid hookup & remediation

Nearest substation1.3 mi
Operator address417 South Fifth St, Columbia, MO, 65211
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 — Boone 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)70,982
IT / tech employment6
Construction employment3,730
Land value$5,608/acre
Datacenter tax incentivesales_tax_exemption

Power economics & interconnection

Commercial power rate10.91¢/kWh
Industrial power rate9.14¢/kWh
Load growth (FERC-714)0.7%

Water & cooling

Water stressLow
Public water supply17.9 MGD
Industrial water use0.0 MGD
Cooling degree days1,500
Mean annual temp56°F

Hazard, flood & connectivity

FEMA risk index38.0 · Relatively High
Fiber providers11 · 94% 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 MU Combined Heat and Power Plant — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.

SiteFormer useLegacy MWDistanceCleanup status
Columbia (MO)coal plant391.5 mi—
Fulton (MO)oil plant521.4 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 MU Combined Heat and Power Plant, ranked by DC Readiness.

Candidate sites near MU Combined Heat and Power Plant
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
OVERTON (345KV)Substation-AdjacentMOCooper County345 kV600 MW2.8 yrs62.9
UNKNOWN117810Substation-AdjacentMOCallaway County345 kV600 MW2.8 yrs62.2
UNKNOWN117844Substation-AdjacentMOCallaway County345 kV600 MW2.8 yrs62.0
EC Near Columbia (MO)GreenfieldMOBoone——1.4 yrs60.9
EC Near Columbia (MO)GreenfieldMOBoone——1.4 yrs60.8
EC Near Columbia (MO)GreenfieldMOBoone——1.4 yrs60.7
EC Coal Boone CountyGreenfieldMOBoone County——1.4 yrs60.4
OZ ColeGreenfieldMOCole——1.4 yrs60.1

See all datacenter sites in Missouri →

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 MU Combined Heat and Power Plant, Columbia, Boone, Missouri 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.