From the South and West sides to the suburbs, communities are feeling the financial and environmental effects of the data center boom.
Data centers — large, windowless, monochrome boxes — are impossible to miss. And it’s not just their appearance that catches their neighbors’ attention: people living close to data centers report a “constant electrical hum” in the air.
Data centers store servers, information technology, and other infrastructure for technology and artificial intelligence companies. Of the more than 150 data centers in the Chicagoland area, most are clustered in the city’s South and West sides, areas that the city’s leadership has traditionally used as “sacrifice zones” for industrial development.
The rise of data centers
Recent studies reveal that in addition to noise pollution, mainly from diesel generators and HVAC systems, the centers emit hazardous pollutants into the air. For nearby communities, pollution associated with data centers has been linked to negative health outcomes, including cardiovascular conditions, respiratory disease, and elevated cancer risk.
The long-term burdens of data centers on public health and the natural environment are hidden costs of living near these electricity-guzzling facilities. The immediate costs are literal: outdated utility company practices are likely to force Chicago residents to pick up the tab for their energy bills.
Energy-hungry facilities strain the grid
To calculate the amount of energy needed to power a data center, take the energy needs of a commercial office building with the same floor space, and multiply it by a number between 10 and 50. Each AI data center uses about as much annual electricity as 100,000 American households, and the International Energy Agency predicts that some data centers under construction will have even greater energy demands, with each center requiring enough annual energy to power two million homes.
As data centers and other large-load energy consumers settle in, local energy demands are skyrocketing, causing energy prices for everyday consumers to spike. ComEd is currently constructing new grid infrastructure to support the increased load demand. Potential costs of these projects, which will include installation of high-voltage poles, wires and transformers, are likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars. In 2024, just one project was estimated to incur $64 million in transmission costs.
How costs are shifted to consumers
As early as July 2025, Chicago-area consumers saw energy bills spike as a result of forecasted data center electricity demand. This trend is nationwide: an independent monitoring agency for the Mid-Atlantic power grid concluded that 70% of increased electricity costs in 2024 came from data centers.
Environmental groups are pushing the Illinois Commerce Commission, which must approve all rates set by utility providers, to require ComEd to modify its dealings with large-load customers. “It’s really important that we are looking at regulations, so that there are parameters, as we see more and more of these,” Samira Hanessian, Illinois Environmental Council’s Energy Policy Director, said.
On Nov. 10, 2025, a coalition of four major U.S. environmental advocacy groups filed a brief asking the Commission to prevent “unjust cost shifts” from data centers to everyday consumers. The petitioners asked the Commission to require large-load energy customers to pay the costs of connecting to infrastructure upfront, in what they call a “contribution in aid of construction” (CIAC). “This protects households from subsidizing private growth,” Karsten Neumeister, Media Relations Specialist at Environmental Law & Policy Center, said.
On Jan. 6, 2026, ComEd announced it made new agreements with certain large-load customers. The new agreements require certain large-load customers to agree upfront that they will pay projected transmission costs regardless of whether their projects materialize, but do not address costs of connecting large-load customers to the grid. When reached for comment, the Environmental Law & Policy Center said: “These [agreements] are a step in the right direction, but still leave ComEd customers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars of data center transmission costs.”
Clean energy concerns grow
In the Nov. 10 filing, the petitioners asked the Commission to create incentives for data centers to use clean energy sources, including a “fast-track review process for projects that bring their own clean capacity resources.” This is because environmental groups are also concerned about the types of energy that data centers use. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, more than half of the energy powering data centers in the U.S. is derived from fossil fuels.
This is problematic for Illinois, which has set a goal to rely on 100% clean energy by 2050. “We want the energy that data centers bring for operation and use [to be] 100% clean energy, in line with our state goals,” Hanessian said.
Gov. Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability (CRGA) Act into law on Jan. 8, 2026. While the law is a long-term solution to help Illinois meet its clean energy goals, and will provide everyday consumers with tools to lower their utility bills, Hanessian believes the CRGA Act is only “a little foot in the door” towards addressing the impacts of the data center industry.
What comes next for Illinois ratepayers
During the next Illinois legislative session, Hanessian hopes lawmakers will support “Bring Your Own New Clean Energy” initiatives. “[We’re] wanting to see these data centers prioritize bringing their own new clean energy with them and standing up their own energy, so that they’re not interconnecting with the grid and essentially siphoning all of the energy, [with] everyday people like you and me footing the bill,” Hanessian said.
According to Neumeister, any delay in the state’s progress towards its clean energy goals will also have cost implications for consumers. “There’s a risk that if you don’t address clean energy in this early rulemaking phase, Illinois could fall behind on its clean energy progress, which could lead to things like developer bottlenecks and rushed procurements of clean energy,” he said.
Data centers paying for their own connection costs, or alternatively supplying their own clean energy, would accomplish this. “We see that as a win-win,” Neumeister said. “Data centers get speed to grid, and Illinois gets data centers supporting its clean energy goals and paying for their own infrastructure, so consumers are protected from absorbing these costs.” Hanessian calls it “being a good neighbor.”