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Gridcensus

Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility

Brownfield

Chapel Hill, Orange, North Carolina · University of North Carolina

Legacy capacity
24
MW

Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility is a coal plant in Chapel Hill, Orange, North Carolina. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 24 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 usecoal plant
Site typeretired_plant
Existing capacity24 MW
EIA plant ID#54276

Grid hookup & remediation

Nearest substation0.0 mi
Operator address501 West Cameron Avenue, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599
Why this site is datacenter-attractive: a coal 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 — Orange 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)41,188
IT / tech employment279
Construction employment1,925
Land value$8,742/acre
Datacenter tax incentivesales_tax_exemption

Power economics & interconnection

Commercial power rate11.86¢/kWh
Industrial power rate8.41¢/kWh
Load growth (FERC-714)1.5%

Water & cooling

Water stressLow
Public water supply8.8 MGD
Industrial water use0.0 MGD
Cooling degree days1,600
Mean annual temp59°F

Hazard, flood & connectivity

FEMA risk index42.0 · Relatively High
Fiber providers8 · 78% 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 Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.

SiteFormer useLegacy MWDistanceCleanup status
Cape Fearcoal plant43121.6 mi—
Mas Durham Power, LLCnatural gas plant114.2 mi—
UNC-CH LFG Facilitynatural gas plant12.2 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 Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility, ranked by DC Readiness.

Candidate sites near Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
UNKNOWN114541Substation-AdjacentNCDurham County500 kV1,000 MW3.8 yrs68.7
DURHAMSubstation-AdjacentNCDurham County500 kV1,000 MW3.8 yrs68.0
TAP147409Substation-AdjacentNCWake County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.3
UNKNOWN160766Substation-AdjacentNCWake County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.3
UNKNOWN115164Substation-AdjacentNCWake County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.3
TAP160803Substation-AdjacentNCWake County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.2
UNKNOWN115163Substation-AdjacentNCDurham County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.2
UNKNOWN115453Substation-AdjacentNCWake County230 kV300 MW3.8 yrs65.2

Nearby internet exchanges

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.

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Every site and score for Univ of NC Chapel Hill Cogen Facility, Chapel Hill, Orange, 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.