Expert tells Champaign County task force data center growth could tighten capacity and raise costs

Mark Pruitt, an analyst from the Power Bureau, told the Champaign County Data Center Activities Task Force on July 6 that a sustained uptick in electricity demand tied to large facilities such as hyperscale data centers is reshaping regional planning and prices.

Pruitt said regional grid operator MISO selects generators through hourly auctions and that a recent long‑term load forecast shows demand rising in 2025 after years of flat loads. He warned that only a small share of proposed generation has cleared interconnection and permitting: "based on a study by Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories ... only 21% of the projects of the megawatts ... were approved over that 10‑year period," he said, adding this gap between rising demand and limited new supply could create resource tightness.

Why it matters: tighter capacity can raise wholesale capacity prices that feed into consumer rates. Pruitt cited a capacity‑charge example in which a summer capacity charge rose from about $10 per megawatt‑day in 2023–24 to $666 in 2025–26, noting the line‑item effect on a typical single‑family household could jump substantially.

Pruitt also explained technical reasons why new renewables do not always count equivalently toward capacity needs. He described ELCC (effective load carrying capability) and said the credited value of solar for summer peak planning is falling as peak demand moves later in the evening, reducing how much solar counts against peak demand unless paired with batteries.

On developer response, Pruitt said interconnection timing can deter projects: "If there's insufficient capacity to meet a new data center, MISO will tell them, 'We can serve you, but it might be 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 years down the road.'" He said that long waits can prompt developers to look elsewhere, shifting regional impacts but not necessarily easing overall market pressure.

Task force members asked detailed questions about zone transfers, regional import capacity into central and southern Illinois (Ameren territory), and whether utilities or ISOs can impose renewable requirements on individual large loads. Pruitt said state policy sets renewables standards and noted a recent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order requiring ISOs including MISO and PJM to establish new interconnection rules for data centers may change practices in the short term.

Public commenters who preceded the briefing linked the technical discussion to local concerns. One speaker urged requiring verifiable will‑serve letters, limiting behind‑the‑meter or off‑grid reliance by data centers, and using taxes or fees so that data centers pay for the infrastructure they drive to need. Another recommended using data center revenue to fund distributed residential solar to increase local resilience and household savings.

The presentation closed with Pruitt urging the task force to weigh both regional capacity realities and state policy levers now being considered at the Illinois Commerce Commission and in federal rulemaking. The task force followed the briefing with a detailed discussion of draft local ordinance language on renewable and storage requirements for future data centers.

The task force will meet again July 13 to focus on backup generators, noise, vibration and minimum separations; no regulatory action was taken at this meeting.