The Joliet City Council approved a 795-acre, $20B data center proposal late last week despite community concerns, as a state commission gave the go-ahead on new charges for large data center projects.
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On Thursday, council members approved a proposal for the Joliet Technology Center from Hillwood Investment Properties, a Dallas-based developer founded by Ross Perot Jr., to build out a 24-building campus for potential hyperscaler users like Google, Amazon and Meta.
Hundreds of community members showed up to public hearings on the project to express concerns over noise pollution and water and power usage, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Hillwood will develop the data center campus in partnership with PowerHouse Data Centers in phases over several years, according to a website promoting the project. The developer estimates that the project will create between 7,000 and 10,000 construction jobs and create roughly $2.1B in local tax revenue over the next 30 years.
Construction on the project will start either late this year or early 2027 and could take up to five years to complete.
As Joliet approved the massive project, the Illinois Commerce Commission also gave the green light to a ComEd proposal requiring large data center developers to pay larger deposits to protect ratepayers against projects that don't pan out, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Projects that require a lot of power, 50 megawatts or more, will pay $500K more than the standard $1M engineering studies deposit for every 100 megawatt threshold above 200 MW. Deposit requirements for infrastructure build-out will also increase, often by tens of millions of dollars.
Developers that complete their projects will get most of the money back if the data center operates at its projected demand, according to the Tribune. The energy company will keep deposits for projects that aren't finished to cover the cost of excessive infrastructure build-out.
About 100 large-load projects are currently in the Illinois pipeline, representing roughly 35,000 MW of demand, ComEd Director of Economic Development Max Leichtman told the outlet. If all the projects are completed, it would more than double the company's peak electricity demand over the next 15 years, he said.
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