Former Mine Datacenter Sites in Minnesota
At a glance
Decommissioned or active mining land. Mine sites often retain heavy electrical service and water rights from prior operations, and many sit near coal-plant substations now freeing up grid capacity.
Top former mine sites in Minnesota
| Site | Type | County | Voltage | Capacity | Queue wait | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Hennepin County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Scott County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Polk County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Clay County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Clay County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Scott County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Clay County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Clay County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.1 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Dakota County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.1 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Clay County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.1 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Dakota County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 57.0 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Carver County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Freeborn County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Freeborn County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Olmsted County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Steele County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Steele County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Steele County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Steele County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Hennepin County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Ramsey County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Olmsted County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Scott County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Scott County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | St. Louis County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.3 |
How does Minnesota compare with other states for former mine sites?
With 332 sites, Minnesota ranks 20th of the 50 states that have any former mine candidate sites. Kentucky leads with 5,049. Nationally, former mine sites average 49.7/100 DC Readiness, below the 53.0 average across all site types. Across every site type, Minnesota averages 56.0, the 11th-highest of 52 states, and its candidate sites face an average interconnection-queue wait of 4.3 years.
Where are the highest-scoring former mine sites in Minnesota?
The top 25 range from 57.5 to 56.3 on the 0–100 DC Readiness Score. They are concentrated in Clay County (5), Scott County (4), Steele County (4) and Hennepin County (2). By grid region, 20 are in MISO and 5 are in SPP.
County pages: Clay County · Scott County · Steele County · Hennepin County
What power, fiber and flood exposure do these former mine sites have?
Their counties have a median of 13 fixed fiber broadband providers in FCC data. The median distance to the nearest internet exchange facility is 5 km. The median interconnection-queue wait in their markets is 4.3 years. None of the 1 with a mapped FEMA flood zone sits in a high-risk (A or V) zone.
Frequently asked questions
How many former mine datacenter sites are in Minnesota?
GridCensus catalogs 332 former mine datacenter candidate sites in Minnesota, 1% of the national total for this type (20th of 50 states).
What is a former mine datacenter site?
Decommissioned or active mining land. Mine sites often retain heavy electrical service and water rights from prior operations, and many sit near coal-plant substations now freeing up grid capacity.
What is the best former mine datacenter site in Minnesota?
By DC Readiness Score, Mine Site in Hennepin County ranks first at 57.5/100, followed by Mine Site in Scott County at 57.5.
Which Minnesota counties have the best former mine sites?
The top 25 former mine sites in Minnesota are concentrated in Clay County (5), Scott County (4), Steele County (4) and Hennepin County (2).
How does Minnesota score for datacenters overall?
All 3,216 scored sites in Minnesota average 56.0/100 DC Readiness, the 11th-highest of 52 states, against a national average of 53.0.
More on former mine sites and Minnesota
- All datacenter sites in Minnesota· 3,216 sites
- Former Mine datacenter sites nationwide· 26,205 sites
- Substation-Adjacent sites in Minnesota· 1,270 sites
- Industrial sites in Minnesota· 911 sites
- Greenfield sites in Minnesota· 594 sites
- Federal Excess sites in Minnesota· 69 sites
- Shovel-Ready sites in Minnesota· 21 sites
- Brownfield sites in Minnesota· 18 sites
Former Mine sites in other states
- Former Mine sites in Kentucky· 5,049 sites
- Former Mine sites in Pennsylvania· 3,356 sites
- Former Mine sites in West Virginia· 2,495 sites
- Former Mine sites in Virginia· 1,614 sites
- Former Mine sites in Alabama· 1,069 sites
- Former Mine sites in Texas· 935 sites
- Former Mine sites in Ohio· 925 sites
- Former Mine sites in Tennessee· 661 sites
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, “Former Mine datacenter sites in Minnesota”, https://gridcensus.com/site-types/mine/minnesota (data as of November 12, 2026).
Go deeper than the public screen
Every site and score for Former Mine sites in Minnesota 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.