Skip to content
Gridcensus

International Paper Riegelwood Mill

Brownfield

Riegelwood, Columbus, North Carolina · International Paper Co-Riegelwood

Legacy capacity
18
MW

International Paper Riegelwood Mill is a former biomass site in Riegelwood, Columbus, North Carolina, retired 2022-06-01. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 18 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 useformer biomass site
Site typeretired_plant
Existing capacity18 MW
Retirement date2022-06-01
EIA plant ID#54656

Grid hookup & remediation

Nearest substation0.3 mi
Operator address865 John L Riegel Road, Riegelwood, NC, 28456
Why this site is datacenter-attractive: a former biomass site 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 — Columbus 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)11,821
Construction employment479
Land value$3,906/acre
Datacenter tax incentivesales_tax_exemption

Power economics & interconnection

Commercial power rate11.32¢/kWh
Industrial power rate7.71¢/kWh
Load growth (FERC-714)1.5%

Water & cooling

Water stressLow
Public water supply2.0 MGD
Industrial water use33.8 MGD
Cooling degree days1,600
Mean annual temp59°F

Hazard, flood & connectivity

FEMA risk index42.0 · Relatively High
Fiber providers6 · 81% 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 International Paper Riegelwood Mill — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.

SiteFormer useLegacy MWDistanceCleanup status
L V Sutton Steamcoal plant76313.9 mi—

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

Get alerts

Track International Paper Riegelwood Mill

Get an email when its DC-readiness score, available capacity, or interconnection-queue status changes.

No spam. Just the alerts you asked for.

Nearby datacenter candidate sites

Scored candidate sites near International Paper Riegelwood Mill, ranked by DC Readiness.

Candidate sites near International Paper Riegelwood Mill
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
UNKNOWN112274Substation-AdjacentNCNew Hanover County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs62.4
TAP148386Substation-AdjacentNCBrunswick County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs59.3
TAP148385Substation-AdjacentNCBrunswick County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs59.2
DELCOSubstation-AdjacentNCBrunswick County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs59.2
UNKNOWN112385Substation-AdjacentNCNew Hanover County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs58.5
TAP155926Substation-AdjacentNCNew Hanover County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs58.5
UNKNOWN112273Substation-AdjacentNCNew Hanover County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs58.5
TAP162480Substation-AdjacentNCNew Hanover County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs58.5

See all datacenter sites in North Carolina →

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 International Paper Riegelwood Mill, Riegelwood, Columbus, North Carolina 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.