# Power Research for Data Center Sites: Transmission and Substations | FOUND

What public maps show about transmission lines, substations, and utility territory near a site, what they cannot show, and the questions only the utility answers.

Canonical: https://lotsfound.com/what-we-check/power-and-substations/

## Power decides the site. The map only starts the question.

We measure a tract's relationship to high-voltage infrastructure from its boundary, identify the utility, and write down what the utility must answer.

## What we read

Published mapping of transmission lines and substations, utility service territories, recorded transmission easements, nearby generation records, and public transmission plans and utility announcements.

## What the record establishes

- Which lines and substations are mapped near the tract, and the voltage published for each.
- Distance from the parcel boundary to that infrastructure.
- The utility whose territory the tract sits in.
- What lies along a possible connection path: rivers, rail, controlled-access highways, wetlands, neighborhoods, and land owned by others.

## What it cannot establish

Firm capacity. A workable point of delivery. Headroom on a transformer. A second independent feed. The utility's willingness to serve. Who pays for upgrades, what they are, and when power would flow. A power plant nearby does not mean its output can reach the parcel.

## Where public data misleads

- **Missing voltage.** A large share of mapped substations carry no published voltage. A blank is a blank, not a low number and not a high one.
- **Missing ownership.** Public substation data often does not say who owns the equipment.
- **Measuring from the wrong point.** On a large tract, distance from the address or the center can differ sharply from distance at the nearest boundary.
- **Straight lines.** A short straight-line distance can cross a river, a railroad, and three owners. The map distance is not a route.

## The kind of utility matters

Investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, and municipal systems each handle large loads differently. Identifying the serving utility is the first power fact for any site. See [a substation next door is not power](/insights/power-proximity-is-not-capacity/).

## Who confirms it

The serving utility and an electrical or interconnection engineer. They establish the service arrangement, the studies, the upgrades, the cost, and the schedule.

## What we hand you

The mapped infrastructure with sources, the measured relationships, the obstacles along the way, the serving utility, and a list of questions in the order the utility will need them.

## Questions

### Does a transmission line crossing my land mean I have power?

No. It means a high-voltage asset is close. Whether the utility can deliver a large load there is a separate question that only the utility answers.

### Can public records show how much capacity a substation has left?

No. Capacity and headroom are not published. They come from the utility, usually after a formal request.

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