Skip to content
Gridcensus

WECC Datacenter Sites

Western Electricity Coordinating Council

At a glance

WECC (Western Electricity Coordinating Council) contains 24,461 of the 147,272 datacenter candidate sites GridCensus scores — 17% of the national total and the 3rd-largest of 9 grid regions by site count. Its sites average 50.8/100 on the DC Readiness Score (national average 53.0), the 8th-highest of 9 regions. Projects near these sites wait an average of 3.7 yrs in the interconnection queue.

WECC spans the entire western interconnection outside California's ISO, from the Rockies to the Pacific Northwest. Abundant hydro and renewables pair with rapidly growing load and long transmission distances.

24,461
Candidate sites
50.8/100
Avg DC Readiness
903.1k MW
Catalogued capacity
theoretical aggregate
3.7 yrs
Avg queue wait

How does WECC compare with other grid regions?

By site count WECC is the 3rd-largest of 9 regions GridCensus tracks, with 24,461 candidate sites. Its average DC Readiness of 50.8 is the 8th-highest of 9, below the 53.0 national average. The average interconnection-queue wait of 3.7 yrs is the 2nd-shortest of 9. Sites here see an average queue depth of 66 projects at their nearest point of interconnection. Catalogued substation capacity near these sites sums to 903.1k MW, a theoretical aggregate rather than available headroom.

Which states and site types make up WECC?

Washington (6,017 sites, 25%), Arizona (3,804 sites, 16%) and Oregon (2,430 sites, 10%) hold the largest shares of the region's candidate sites. By type, federal excess sites make up 40% (9,756; 12% nationally), substation-adjacent sites make up 25% (6,054; 26% nationally) and industrial sites make up 18% (4,458; 24% nationally).

Member states

By site type

What are WECC sites strongest and weakest on?

WECC is strongest on hazard resilience, averaging 76.8 against a national average of 66.8; its weakest factor is water, at 42.0 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).

Power availability
36.9
Speed-to-power
51.4
Fiber
64.1
Water
42.0
Hazard resilience
76.8

Top 25 datacenter sites in WECC

Top datacenter sites in WECC
SiteTypeStateCountyVoltageCapacityQueue waitScore
COLSTRIPSubstation-AdjacentMTRosebud County500 kV1,000 MW1.1 yrs75.8
UAMPS Carbon Free Power PlantBrownfieldIDBonneville County46 kV762 MW5.0 yrs72.4
KEELERSubstation-AdjacentORWashington County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs70.9
PEARLSubstation-AdjacentORWashington County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs70.3
BROADVIEWSubstation-AdjacentMTGolden Valley County500 kV1,000 MW1.1 yrs70.1
BPA TROUTDALESubstation-AdjacentORMultnomah County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs69.7
Copper Crossing Energy and Research CentBrownfieldAZPinal County69 kV1,779 MW3.5 yrs69.5
COLUMBIASubstation-AdjacentWAGrant County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs69.1
OSTRANDERSubstation-AdjacentORMultnomah County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.7
ALVEYSubstation-AdjacentORLane County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.5
MAPLE VALLEYSubstation-AdjacentWAKing County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.4
WanapumBrownfieldWAGrant County500 kV1,038 MW3.5 yrs68.2
COVINGTONSubstation-AdjacentWAKing County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.2
SNO-KINGSubstation-AdjacentWAKitsap County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.2
TAP200917Substation-AdjacentWASnohomish County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.1
LANESubstation-AdjacentORLane County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.1
Chevron Casper Wind FarmBrownfieldWYNatrona115 kV17 MW3.5 yrs68.0
BELLSubstation-AdjacentWASpokane County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs68.0
CHEROKEESubstation-AdjacentCODenver County230 kV300 MW3.5 yrs67.9
MONROESubstation-AdjacentWASnohomish County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs67.8
UNKNOWN201455Substation-AdjacentWAThurston County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs67.8
MCNARYSubstation-AdjacentORBenton County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs67.6
MERIDIANSubstation-AdjacentORJackson County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs67.6
RATTLESNAKESubstation-AdjacentMTMissoula County230 kV300 MW1.1 yrs67.4
SACAJAWEASubstation-AdjacentWAWalla Walla County500 kV1,000 MW3.5 yrs67.4

WECC FAQ

What is WECC?

Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) WECC spans the entire western interconnection outside California's ISO, from the Rockies to the Pacific Northwest. Abundant hydro and renewables pair with rapidly growing load and long transmission distances.

How many datacenter sites are in the WECC region?

GridCensus catalogs 24,461 scored datacenter candidate sites in WECC, averaging 50.8/100 DC Readiness — 17% of all sites scored nationally.

What is the average interconnection-queue wait in WECC?

Candidate sites in WECC average a 3.7 yrs queue wait with an average queue depth of 66 projects, the 2nd-shortest of 9 regions.

Which state has the most WECC datacenter sites?

Washington has the most, with 6,017 scored sites (25% of the region), followed by Arizona with 3,804.

What is the highest-scoring datacenter site in WECC?

COLSTRIP in Rosebud County, Montana scores 75.8/100, 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, “WECC datacenter candidate sites”, https://gridcensus.com/iso/wecc (data as of November 12, 2026).

Go deeper than the public screen

Every site and score for WECC 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.

See plansTalk to us