Rural Illinois Embraces Resource-Sapping Data Centers

Data centers are not always welcomed with open arms in rural communities.

But some local leaders in Illinois area eager to overcome the facilities’ environmental obstacles in hopes of generating property tax revenues and job opportunities, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Data center giant Equinix is working on securing approvals for a data center in Minooka, a rural community about 50 miles southwest of Chicago. The town’s mayor, Ric Offerman, is helping push the project along.

Offerman’s encouragement joins a growing trend of data center development in Illinois.

In 2023, ComEd predicted a 40 percent increase in its electricity deliveries by 2040, primarily because of data centers.

Electricity demand from data centers in Northeast Illinois alone is expected to triple as new leases and proposed data centers come on line, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Offerman joins other local leaders who are supportive of the proposals despite their environmental concerns.

About 20 miles north of Minooka, the town of Yorkville has fully embraced the data center sector, city administrator Bart Olson said. The town recently approved its first 230-acre data center and has received interest from investors and data center companies and investors eyeing land totaling 3,000 acres.

Back in Minooka, the Equinix project will cover 340 acres and require 700 megawatts of electricity a day. That’s about the same amount of electricity needed to power half of the households in the city of Chicago.

Cooling the facility will also require 3 million gallons of water per day from a $1.54 billion pipeline currently under construction from Lake Michigan.

Meeting those needs will pay off for Minooka, Offerman said, because the project will boost the town’s property tax revenues and create hundreds of jobs.

State environmental regulators will have a say in the project’s approval.

“One of the questions the state will ask is, is it really the highest and best use of a finite resource to use drinkable water to cool a computer?” said Hugh O’Hara, executive director of the Will County Governmental League.

Some Equinix facilities overseas use “gray water” otherwise known as wastewater to reduce competition over drinking water. But the process and the regulations needed to accompany it have not been developed in the U.S. Equinix, which is based in California, operates 260 data centers in 33 countries.

An alternative option is cooling the data center with electricity, which presents its own challenges. Doing so could drive up electricity costs for residents and derail the state’s goal to eliminate fossil fuel use for power plants by 2045.

Offerman said he wants to help find a way to provide the water or energy needed to cool the plant and keep the project moving forward.

“It’s the best use of that land except for farmland,” he said. “It’s much better than a hundred different things they could put there.”