Douglas County $24.80 per kgal6 million gallons per MW-yearGoogle's sitesHouston 3,339 wet-bulb hoursdry-cooler fan penaltyfour markets where hybrid paysthe 50 MW BoM
By Open Factory · 16 October 2026 · 20 minute read
The lead. A thousand gallons delivered to a large meter in Douglas County, Georgia, costs $24.80 once it is sent back to the sewer. The authority's current chart splits that into $12.10 for the water in the top tier and $12.70 for the treatment. The same thousand gallons in Baton Rouge costs $1.51 from the water company and $7.17 from the parish sewer, $8.68 together. An open cooling tower rejecting 50 MW of heat needs about 300 million gallons a year, so with a sewer deduct meter in place the gap between those two sheets is $3.6 million a year for the same plant. The Open Factory Datacenter MEP Cost Table now holds the water and sewer tariff for every one of the 15 markets in the Large-Load Cost Table, and this piece is the first side-by-side.
The bars run from $24.80 in Douglas County and $23.96 in Santa Clara through $21.14 in Houston to $9.43 in Denver and $8.68 in Baton Rouge, and the sewer segment is the larger of the two in eleven of the fifteen rows. The piece covers the gallons a tower needs, the fifteen tariff sheets in one table, what Google, Microsoft and Meta disclose, the wet-bulb and dry-bulb hours that decide which machine works where, the fan penalty of going dry, the ten-year breakeven by market, why the water fights are about permits rather than bills, and, behind the wall, the 50 MW bill of materials three ways with the vendor shortlist.
A Chinese 6 to 12 kW fiber laser sells for $45,000 to $85,000 FOB in December 2025 and lands at about $128,000 after the 41% duty stack, while federal buyers paid $645,000 to $1.75 million in 2025, a $504,000 gap to the cheapest award Open Factory's Equipment Price Benchmark itemizes.
As of September 2026 a 2,500 kVA pad-mount transformer pays 25% US duty from every origin and 50% from China, while a low-voltage panel with its PLC pays 0% from Mexico, 10% from Germany, 12.5% from Japan and 40.2% from China, per Open Factory's Tariff Exposure Calculator.
SendCutSend cuts an aluminum bracket in 2 to 4 production days with no minimum quantity, has shipped more than 30 million parts to 300,000 customers from three US plants, and raised $110 million at a $1.01 billion valuation in May 2026. Open Factory's Lead-Time Monitor tracks the turnaround.
A prefabricated electrical room for a 50 MW datacenter is not cheaper: Open Factory's Datacenter MEP Cost Table lands the skid route at $3.51M per MW against $3.47M stick-built, 1% more, but 27 weeks faster at 95 weeks from power-block PO to energization against 122, as of August 2026.
On public awards Open Factory can read, the spares line is 0.8% of a transformer award, 2% of a genset and 20% of a breaker buy, and the City of Ocala paid $40,197.50 per ABB R-Mag breaker in November 2023 and $44,499.75 in November 2025 with no second quote.
NVIDIA set a ship date for 800 VDC on August 11, 2026, with the MGX power rack due in the second half of 2026. Open Factory finds a five-year 415 V UPS and AC busway frame agreement puts 40 to 60% of its dollars into superseded SKUs.
A 50 MW connection requested in Northern Virginia in 2026 energizes in 2033 after $75 million of collateral and a 14 year contract, while the same 50 MW in Houston posts no rule-mandated security and can be live in 2028, per Open Factory's Large-Load Cost Table as of August 2026.
Liquidated damages in public transformer, switchgear and genset contracts run about 0.5% of price a week, capped at 5%, so as of July 2026 a week of delay on a 50 MW datacenter hall costs about $2.7 million against $74,000 of LDs, per Open Factory's Large-Load Cost Table.
An equipment RFQ in 2026 has to settle escalators, LDs, milestones and tariff refunds: the City of Ocala agreed $8,070,340 for two 105 MVA autotransformers in August 2023 and approved $9,170,340 for the same units on April 28, 2026, a $1.1 million PPI escalator, per Open Factory's Bid-Tab Price Book.
Texas had about 474 GW of large-load interconnection requests as of August 2026, and ERCOT's March 26, 2026 status table shows 9.0 GW approved to energize and 5.8 GW energized, so about 2% has permission to draw power, as tracked in Open Factory's Large-Load Cost Table.
A five-cubicle 15 kV metal-clad lineup. The vermilion relay window marks the cubicle under test; breaker availability, not sheet metal, sets its lead time.
Published lead times for eleven equipment classes compiled from OEM lead-time guides, Census M3 unfilled orders over shipments, ISM supplier deliveries and backlog disclosures in filings. Every cell carries its OEM and date.
Quarterly orders, backlog and book-to-bill for every listed electrical, power and cooling OEM, from filings only, with the read-across for buyers: which classes are getting longer and which are clearing.
Capex per MW by component on the Turner & Townsend and JLL baselines, air-cooled and liquid-cooled, with each line's lead time from the Lead-Time Monitor and the carrying cost of delay.
$9.8M per MWall-in datacenter build cost, Mar 2026
What a 50 MW connection costs and takes in 15 US markets: study fees, security per MW, minimum bills, contract terms, exit fees and realistic energization year, from tariffs and dockets.
2033realistic energization year for a new 50 MW load in Northern Virginia, Aug 2026
Updated as dockets move; reviewed monthly; energization years revisited each quarter. Table free. Compiling data
Latest copper price to $/ft of metal by NEC conductor size, with an escalation-clause calculator for bids.
Inputs: Copper and aluminum $/lb (defaults from FRED, overwrite with the COMEX settlement), Conductor size (#4 AWG to 600 kcmil copper, 4/0 to 900 kcmil aluminum) and run length, Escalation clause: line price at bid, index at bid and at PO, copper share or pounds, deadband. Defaults from the Public Bid-Tab Price Book.
Ten-year cost of a standby or prime generator set: diesel vs gas vs dual fuel, fuel, maintenance, permitting, Tier 4 aftertreatment, run hours.
Inputs: Rating (kW), fuel (diesel, gas, dual) and Tier 4 Final toggle, Run hours per year and average load, Fuel price (diesel default from EIA via FRED; gas from your contract) and fuel use from the spec sheet. Defaults from the Public Bid-Tab Price Book.
MW and market to study fees, security deposit, minimum-bill exposure and realistic energization year, from the Large-Load Cost Table.
Inputs: Market (15 utilities across PJM, ERCOT, CAISO, MISO and the non-RTO Southeast and West), Requested MW, Your demand charge ($/kW-month) to dollarize the minimum bill. Defaults from the Large-Load Cost Table.
Open Factory is written for the people who sign purchase orders for machines, switchgear, power and cooling, and for the investors who need to know what those people are seeing. Articles run free to the paywall. The numbers in the Highlights come from trackers you can buy.
The free letter arrives on Tuesday. Pro gets the whole article and the tools. Institutions get the models, the data behind the charts, and a phone number.
