Former Mine Datacenter Sites in South Dakota
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 South Dakota
| Site | Type | County | Voltage | Capacity | Queue wait | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 56.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Bon Homme County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Custer County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Lincoln County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 55.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Yankton County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Custer County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Minnehaha County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Bon Homme County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pennington County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Custer County | — | — | 4.3 yrs | 54.0 |
How does South Dakota compare with other states for former mine sites?
With 150 sites, South Dakota ranks 38th 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, South Dakota averages 54.7, the 19th-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 South Dakota?
The top 25 range from 56.6 to 54.0 on the 0–100 DC Readiness Score. They are concentrated in Minnehaha County (12), Pennington County (6), Custer County (3) and Bon Homme County (2). By grid region, 13 are in MISO and 12 are in SPP.
County pages: Minnehaha County · Pennington County · Custer County · Bon Homme County
What power, fiber and flood exposure do these former mine sites have?
Their counties have a median of 8 fixed fiber broadband providers in FCC data. The median distance to the nearest internet exchange facility is 13 km. The median interconnection-queue wait in their markets is 4.3 years. None of the 2 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 South Dakota?
GridCensus catalogs 150 former mine datacenter candidate sites in South Dakota, 0.6% of the national total for this type (38th 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 South Dakota?
By DC Readiness Score, Mine Site in Minnehaha County ranks first at 56.6/100, followed by Mine Site in Minnehaha County at 56.6.
Which South Dakota counties have the best former mine sites?
The top 25 former mine sites in South Dakota are concentrated in Minnehaha County (12), Pennington County (6), Custer County (3) and Bon Homme County (2).
How does South Dakota score for datacenters overall?
All 1,151 scored sites in South Dakota average 54.7/100 DC Readiness, the 19th-highest of 52 states, against a national average of 53.0.
More on former mine sites and South Dakota
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 South Dakota”, https://gridcensus.com/site-types/mine/south-dakota (data as of November 12, 2026).
Go deeper than the public screen
Every site and score for Former Mine sites in South Dakota 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.