It’s projected to cost ComEd $3.1B to connect data centers to the grid
[October 27, 2026]
By Maggie Dougherty
CHICAGO — Data centers have been the focus of growing debate across the
U.S., facing a push for regulation that would require operators to pay
for the energy and water resources they use, among other proposals.
But beyond paying to generate new energy, consumer advocates warn that
the costs of infrastructure to connect data centers to ComEd’s grid will
be paid in part by households and small businesses in northern Illinois
— something the utility disputes.
Records filed by ComEd in an ongoing regulatory matter show that new
infrastructure and system upgrades needed to connect 30 data centers to
the grid will cost $3.1 billion. Some of those projects are already
connected, with the rest expected to come online by 2031.
Developers of those data centers have paid $721 million in advance
deposits, just under 25% of the total cost, an amount that consumer
groups including the Citizens Utility Board and Environmental Law &
Policy Center say could leave a potential shortfall of $2 billion to be
spread across regular customers’ bills.
“Ordinary households should not foot the bill to provide power to data
centers,” said Nick Wallace, a senior associate attorney with the
environmental law center. “ComEd and the (Illinois Commerce) Commission
can protect ratepayers and the grid by requiring data centers to pay for
100% of their power supply and infrastructure investments.”
ComEd contends that the consumer groups’ analysis overlooks $1.1 billion
secured by lines of credit that guarantee rate payments from the data
centers for 10 years.
Electricity delivery
The $3.1 billion in costs comes from two components of the electricity
delivery system: transmission and distribution. Both include using poles
and wires to move electricity from one place to another, but at
different stages in the process.
Transmission lines carry high-voltage electricity long distances along
highways and across state lines from power plants to local substations
where it can be reduced into lower-voltage electricity. Distribution
lines then carry that electricity to the homes and businesses that use
it.
The data center connection costs are split roughly equally, with $1.6
billion expected in transmission costs and $1.5 million in distribution
costs.
The transmission costs for several individual projects each exceed $100
million, with one project alone expected to cost $289 million and
another expected to cost $269 million.
Max Leichtman, ComEd’s director of economic and workforce development,
said only the distribution costs are an appropriate apples-to-apples
comparison for the $721 million in deposits.
Some of those projects won’t come online until 2030 or 2031 and are in
early stages of development, so the full cost of equipment needed has
not been calculated, he added.
“The deposits that today stand at $721 million may continue to increase
as these projects move forward and become more mature and more
well-defined,” Leichtman said. “That doesn’t mean that’s all we’ll ever
collect.”
Leichtman said any remaining distribution costs would not be spread
among all customers, but rather between similar types of customers in
the large-user rate class.
Consumer advocates, though, say the data center developers cannot be
taken at their word to pay the bills.
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Transmission lines carry high-voltage electricity across large
geographic areas from power plants to local substations that can
then distribute it to homes and businesses. (Capitol News Illinois
photo by Maggie Dougherty)
“These data centers are some of the wealthiest corporations in the
world,” CUB spokesperson Jim Chilsen told reporters. “They always say,
‘Trust us, we’re going to pay our energy bills,’ but Illinois customers
can’t afford to take big tech’s word for it.”
Reducing speculation
Hyperscale data centers’ requests for energy usage are often understood
to be largely speculative. The massive projects — often operated by
multibillion-dollar tech companies looking to compete in the race for
artificial intelligence — sometimes place duplicate requests with
different utilities, meaning some do not come to fruition.
The projects have also faced growing opposition from local communities
in recent years, causing many to withdraw.
ComEd, in cooperation with Illinois and federal regulators, has sought
to weed out speculative requests that drive up energy demand prices by
requiring deposits for large customers and requiring them to sign
long-term contracts known as transmission security agreements, or TSAs,
that require customers to provide a line of credit guaranteeing payment
of transmission rates for 10 years, even if the project does not
materialize.
Regulators approved ComEd’s TSA requirement in 2025, meaning that
projects after that point have them in place.
Of the total $1.6 billion in planned transmission costs, ComEd has $1.1
billion protected through transmission security agreements. Nineteen of
the 30 projects pre-date the TSA requirement.
Implementing the TSAs has also resulted in “substantial attrition” of
data center requests in ComEd’s queue, Leichtman said.
Payments now or later
Like many of the utility watchdogs, ComEd also endorses the idea that
large-load customers like data centers should be directly allocated the
cost of their projects.
The electric utility has proposed a new approach in which it would
directly assign rates to individual data centers based on their costs
rather than assigning costs within groups. ComEd says that proposal, in
combination with the TSAs and deposit requirements, shows it has been
proactive in protecting customers.
“We really believe that in totality, the suite of proposals that we put
together are industry-leading,” Leichtman said.
But unlike its watchdogs, ComEd does not think the data centers should
be asked to pay for the infrastructure costs up front, which it said
would make it difficult for those customers to do business in Illinois.
Eric DeBellis, general counsel for CUB, agreed the TSAs are an
improvement but said they would still leave a “substantial gap” that
households and small businesses should not be left to pay.
“We don’t want to pay for grid bridges to nowhere,” DeBellis said. “If
they don’t have these up-front payments, then we’re left footing the
bill for all of it.”
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
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