On March 19, the Champaign County Zoning Board of Appeals voted to enact a year-long moratorium on large data centers, stopping active construction on proposed data centers larger than 10,000 square feet. 

The public hearing garnered widespread attention from Champaign County residents worried about the impact of big data centers on water and energy in the region. Votes in favor of the moratorium align with the recent POWER Act introduced by the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition in early February. 

The moratorium proposal will now go to the Champaign County Board Environmental and Land Use Committee before a final vote by the full Champaign County Board.

ICJC is made up of several environmental advocacy groups including the Prairie Rivers Network, Sierra Club, Faith in Place and the Natural Resources Defense Council — among others — advocating for environmental sustainability across Illinois.

“Data centers are the next big threat to our clean energy transition and our affordability,” said Andrew Rehn, climate policy director for the Prairie Rivers Network. 

The POWER Act addresses growing environmental and financial concerns regarding unregulated electricity demands from data centers across Illinois. 

As demand for big data increases, Illinois ratepayers are impacted by increasing utility bills, noise pollution, contamination of water and air quality concerns. 

ICJC is working with State Rep. Robyn Gabel and State Sen. Ram Villivalam to pass the POWER Act through legislation, with a number of other representatives who have already signed on.

While data centers have existed for decades, the growing demands of generative artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the amount of resources that big tech companies are seeking to use. 

“The scale that they’re proposing them at is truly unprecedented now,” Rehn said. “It is really breaking the game with the way that we think about our shared resources.” 

Large data centers are now being referred to as hyperscale, with new proposals across Illinois.

A 600-megawatt data center on more than 200 acres of land is being proposed in Sangamon County, with energy usage equivalent to a small coal plant. Another proposed data center in Will County is 1,800 megawatts on around 800 acres of space, with energy use over three times more. 

The proposed moratorium in Champaign County would give decision-makers time to evaluate the role of hyperscale data centers on both the environment and individual people, as current regulations only relate to data centers at a much smaller scale.

If the moratorium does not pass, the county board would have to consider data centers based on existing rules, disproportionately impacting Illinoisans. 

Current laws allow new users to connect directly to the power grid, operating under the assumption that each individual user isn’t causing much of an increase in demand, so individual payments remain fairly stable. However, with hyperscale data centers, this is changing.

The POWER Act would demand energy and financial responsibility from data centers, ensuring that Illinoisans are not spending money to subsidize big data. 

Data centers have large power and energy requirements, beyond what existing power plants are able to supply. 

The Prairie State Power Plant is the largest coal plant in Illinois, and is the seventh largest single source of greenhouse gases in the country, according to Rehn. The plant is only 1,600 megawatts and would not be enough to power proposed data centers — requiring companies to develop energy sources in conjunction with the data center.

Data centers have major impacts on water resources across the county, from overuse to pollution from discharge. 

“Illinois is uniquely vulnerable in our water law,” Rehn said. “We basically don’t have modern water law at all, we’re using water law that existed in England in the 1800s.”

Data centers require massive amounts of water for cooling servers and current water laws have no restrictions on water use. As a water-rich state, updates to water law have not historically been required, but this is now being challenged by hyperscale data centers that can use up to five million gallons of water per day. 

Although closed-loop cooling centers use less water and are more sustainable for the environment, they still have a number of adverse impacts, including groundwater pollution. 

“Our (proposed) data center is using a closed-loop cooling system, which has glycol and other toxic chemicals running through it to prevent rust and other maintenance issues, and any leaks of that could be a problem,” said Lori McKiernan, volunteer environmental justice activist with Sustainable Springfield and the Sierra Club.

Finding a source of water to supply hyperscale data centers is also a point of concern for communities.

“We want to make sure that we are not using clean drinking water in order to cool these facilities,” said Hannah Flath, director of communications and campaigns at the Illinois Environmental Council. “We don’t want to deplete our resources.”

High energy use from data centers also increases water usage off-site to cool power plants or other energy sources.

Large amounts of water use threaten limited resources, including the Mahomet Aquifer serving Champaign County. Overuse of groundwater can cause aquifers to collapse. The City of Joliet survived off of aquifer water until it could no longer serve the community, and is now using water from Lake Michigan — placing stress on the limited resource. 

“We’re seeing a total lack of transparency — a lot of these data centers just aren’t telling the communities about water use,” Rehn said.

The POWER Act would demand transparency regarding water usage, more sustainable closed-loop cooling systems that use less water and require experts to describe the impact of proposed data centers to the public. 

“We want to know where they’re getting their water, how much they’re using, whether it’s reused or clean drinking water, and what processes they’re using in their facility,” Flath said. 

The act would also force data centers to acquire a water resources impact determination, and if the data center is going to cause adverse impacts on water quality or quantity, it will not be permitted.

Alongside water, the POWER Act also seeks to regulate energy use. Twenty-four-seven demand from servers and cooling systems places a strain on existing energy grids. Wire upgrades of entire grid networks may also be required in order to handle the increased demand. 

ICJC has outlined large load tariffs in the Act to allocate infrastructure costs to data centers, ensuring they not only cover the cost of their own energy use, but of upgrades to transmission infrastructure and all other expenditures related to the data center. 

In order to meet demand, the POWER Act outlines the need for data centers to bring new, clean energy capacity in order to meet their demand under the Bring Your Own New Clean Capacity and Energy stipulation. 

“We need it to be clean, otherwise they’re just going to bring in a bunch of gas, and all our climate goals go out the window,” Rehn said.

To incentivize centers to use 100% clean energy, they will only be guaranteed 24-hour service for the percentage of clean energy they bring in. If they use 100% clean energy, they will be allowed to connect to the grid faster.

“The POWER Act does not take a position on if AI is good or bad, it’s about making sure that if a data center shows up, the harms of that data center are mitigated and prevented,” Rehn said. 

Data centers also often use back-up diesel generators that cause large amounts of air and noise pollution. 

“There was a story I saw where a data center ran on back-up diesel for three days and the folks that live near the facility said it sounded like jet engines were constantly landing on top of their homes,” Flath said. 

These diesel generators are tested once a month to ensure they are operating reliably, exacerbating environmental concerns.

“When they run they have the same toxic emissions as burning diesel, so nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide — they just emit a lot of pollution,” McKiernan said. 

According to McKiernan, hyperscale data center construction drives pylons into the ground to support the large structure. If the pylons go through aquifer wells, there can be leakage from the construction site into groundwater supply systems.  

Data centers offer a lot of property tax and jobs that prioritize local communities, Rehn said.

“County boards and city centers are in favor of (data centers), because they see promised tax revenues and promised jobs,” McKiernan said. “And I say promised because we have been unable to verify the promised tax revenues and promised jobs from (the proposed data center in Sangamon County).” 

Some local governments sign non-disclosure agreements with data center companies, restricting information release. 

“Folks don’t know exactly how many jobs are going to come out of this facility, whether in construction or in long-term jobs, and that is key to helping a community decide whether it’s something they want to bring in,” Flath said. 

The rise in generative AI and data centers have significantly increased environmental risks across Illinois. 

“I think every single time someone uses AI to make a little cartoon or whatever, dump out a glass of water because that’s essentially what you’re doing,” Flath said. 

Champaign County residents are concerned about a potential rise in energy prices and its impact on their single-source aquifer. 

McKiernan said, in general, people across Illinois are against the hyperscale data centers.

“They’re ugly, they’re lit 24 hours a day, they have low-frequency hums, and the majority of people that we’re talking to feel like those harms outweigh the promised benefits,” McKiernan said. 

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