Data layer · shown for every 1 km site in published U.S. regions · not part of the composite score
For energy-intensive uses, the price of power is not a line item — it is the site decision.
Manufacturing, data centers, cold storage, controlled-environment agriculture: for these, electricity is among the largest recurring costs a location imposes, and it varies more than almost anything else about American geography. Industrial power in the cheapest service territories costs a quarter of what it costs in the most expensive — a spread that outweighs most tax, labor, and logistics differentials a site comparison will ever surface.
Arcanium reports the average retail price of electricity for the utility that actually serves each site — not a state average, which conceals the co-operative charging six cents inside an investor-owned territory charging twelve. Prices are computed from federal regulatory filings: each utility’s reported revenue divided by its delivered energy, blended across commercial and industrial customers — the classes a commercial buyer pays as — and mapped through each utility’s authoritative service-territory boundary.
Two honesty notes. Electricity prices vary by service territory, not by kilometer, so every site inside one territory shows one figure — the resolution of the underlying market, stated rather than interpolated away. And the figure is a realized average, not your tariff: large loads negotiate, and time-of-use structures reward flexibility. Treat it as the comparable baseline between places, which is what a screen needs; the deal you strike comes after the shortlist.
The Energy Cost Index is shown alongside the nine scored variables and is not folded into the composite opportunity score.
← The nine scored variables