## Highlights Upper Peninsula Michigan has solidified its position as the third-ranked excess-power market in the United States at **74.4 on the DCPI excess-power scale**, paired with a **19.0% constraint ratio**—the lowest transmission fr
## Highlights
Upper Peninsula Michigan has solidified its position as the third-ranked excess-power market in the United States at **74.4 on the DCPI excess-power scale**, paired with a **19.0% constraint ratio**—the lowest transmission friction among the three leading build corridors tracked today. Midland–Odessa (Texas, ERCOT) maintains the top position at 85.7 excess with 22.8% constraint, while Oklahoma City (SPP) ranks second at 73.7 excess with a 48.9% constraint profile.
This three-market hierarchy reflects a strategic divergence in infrastructure economics. Upper Peninsula Michigan's cold-climate cooling advantage and MISO's rural transmission spine now compete directly with ERCOT's Permian density and SPP's cost basis—each offering distinct trade-offs between power availability, transmission bottleneck risk, and capex efficiency.
## What It Means
For capacity planners targeting 2027–2028 builds, the Upper Peninsula's entry into the top three reshapes site-selection logic. A 19% constraint ratio paired with 74.4 excess power signals that builds staged in MISO's northern corridor can absorb large incremental loads (100+ MW facilities) without triggering transmission upgrades that typically add 18–36 months to interconnection timelines. This advantage compounds for multi-facility deployments: a portfolio strategy placing 50 MW in Upper Peninsula Michigan, 100 MW in Midland–Odessa, and 75 MW in Oklahoma City—totaling 225 MW—would distribute constraint risk across three uncorrelated transmission zones while maintaining >70 excess-power headroom in each.
Capital allocators should note that cold regions with low constraint now command parity pricing with hot zones that trade density for thermal spend. This signals a maturation in the AI-infrastructure market: transmission headroom, not just power cost, is pricing into site NPV.
## Methodology
The DCPI excess-power index (0–100 scale) measures available interconnection capacity, renewable curtailment elasticity, and transmission utilization. Constraint ratio reflects the proportion of queued capacity blocked by transmission upgrade requirements. Data is refreshed daily across 280+ US and global markets.
**Source: DC Hub Data Center Power Index** (https://dchub.cloud/dcpi). Updated daily.
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