CAISO Datacenter Sites
California Independent System Operator
At a glance
CAISO runs most of California's grid. Silicon Valley demand and aggressive clean-energy goals collide with high power prices and constrained transmission — a premium but challenging market.
How does CAISO compare with other grid regions?
By site count CAISO is the 6th-largest of 9 regions GridCensus tracks, with 7,921 candidate sites. Its average DC Readiness of 45.7 is the 9th-highest of 9, below the 53.0 national average. The average interconnection-queue wait of 7.6 yrs is the 9th-shortest of 9. Sites here see an average queue depth of 203 projects at their nearest point of interconnection. Catalogued substation capacity near these sites sums to 258.7k MW, a theoretical aggregate rather than available headroom.
Which states and site types make up CAISO?
California (7,165 sites, 90%), Nevada (739 sites, 9%) and Arizona (12 sites, 0.2%) hold the largest shares of the region's candidate sites. By type, federal excess sites make up 37% (2,956; 12% nationally), industrial sites make up 26% (2,096; 24% nationally) and substation-adjacent sites make up 18% (1,420; 26% nationally).
By site type
- Federal Excess2,956
- Industrial2,096
- Substation-Adjacent1,420
- Greenfield874
- Former Mine479
- Brownfield88
- Military BRAC8
What are CAISO sites strongest and weakest on?
its weakest factor is water, at 25.9 versus 72.3 nationally. Each factor is scored 0–100, where higher is better (for water and hazard, higher means lower stress and lower risk).
Top 25 datacenter sites in CAISO
| Site | Type | State | County | Voltage | Capacity | Queue wait | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TESLA Power Project | Brownfield | CA | Alameda County | 500 kV | 1,322 MW | 7.6 yrs | 66.5 |
| Nellis AFB Solar Facility Site I | Brownfield | NV | Clark | 230 kV | 13 MW | 7.6 yrs | 64.0 |
| UNKNOWN301539 | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Mohave County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 63.6 |
| METCALF 1 | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Santa Clara County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.4 |
| Broadway (CA) | Brownfield | CA | Los Angeles County | 66 kV | 167 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.4 |
| MOSS LANDING | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Santa Cruz County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.3 |
| INLAND EMPIRE | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Orange County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.3 |
| VALLEY | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Orange County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.3 |
| LENZIE | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.2 |
| UNKNOWN308478 | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.2 |
| APEX | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.2 |
| NORTHWEST | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 62.0 |
| MEAD | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.8 |
| CLARK | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 230 kV | 300 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.8 |
| OZ Clark | Greenfield | NV | Clark | — | — | 7.6 yrs | 61.8 |
| OZ Clark | Greenfield | NV | Clark | — | — | 7.6 yrs | 61.7 |
| Hunters Point | Brownfield | CA | San Mateo County | 115 kV | 427 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.3 |
| OZ Clark | Greenfield | NV | Clark | — | — | 7.6 yrs | 61.3 |
| EC Coal Clark County | Greenfield | NV | Clark County | — | — | 7.6 yrs | 61.2 |
| HARRY ALLEN (500KV) | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.1 |
| MARKETPLACE | Substation-Adjacent | NV | Clark County | 500 kV | 1,000 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.0 |
| HUNTINGTON BEACH | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Orange County | 230 kV | 300 MW | 7.6 yrs | 61.0 |
| OZ Clark | Greenfield | NV | Clark | — | — | 7.6 yrs | 61.0 |
| HAYNES | Substation-Adjacent | CA | Orange County | 230 kV | 300 MW | 7.6 yrs | 60.9 |
| BLM Solar DLA: Dry Lake | Greenfield | NV | Clark County | — | 1,474 MW | 7.6 yrs | 60.9 |
CAISO FAQ
What is CAISO?
California Independent System Operator (CAISO) CAISO runs most of California's grid. Silicon Valley demand and aggressive clean-energy goals collide with high power prices and constrained transmission — a premium but challenging market.
How many datacenter sites are in the CAISO region?
GridCensus catalogs 7,921 scored datacenter candidate sites in CAISO, averaging 45.7/100 DC Readiness — 5% of all sites scored nationally.
What is the average interconnection-queue wait in CAISO?
Candidate sites in CAISO average a 7.6 yrs queue wait with an average queue depth of 203 projects, the 9th-shortest of 9 regions.
Which state has the most CAISO datacenter sites?
California has the most, with 7,165 scored sites (90% of the region), followed by Nevada with 739.
What is the highest-scoring datacenter site in CAISO?
TESLA Power Project in Alameda County, California scores 66.5/100, the highest DC Readiness Score in the region.
Other grid regions
Related rankings and tools
Dataset updated . Screening estimates derived from public data sources.
About this data
Source: GridCensus composite of HIFLD transmission and substation data, EIA, FEMA National Risk Index, FCC broadband data, PeeringDB and ISO interconnection queues, as published November 12, 2026 — GridCensus refreshes it monthly. See the methodology for how records are matched, cleaned and scored.
Cite as: GridCensus, “CAISO datacenter candidate sites”, https://gridcensus.com/iso/caiso (data as of November 12, 2026).
Go deeper than the public screen
Every site and score for CAISO 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.