ComEd expanding Elk Grove substation to power data center boom

It’s been less than four years since ComEd flipped the switch on a substation in Elk Grove Village to help power what’s become a Midwestern hub for data centers.

But the heavy load consumers of electricity keep popping up, prompting the utility company to expand its transmission infrastructure and capacity in the Northwest suburb and throughout the greater Western O’Hare region.

ComEd and village officials broke ground Friday morning on a planned expansion of the substation at 1500 Midway Court — one of about a half dozen substations in the Northwest suburbs that house the utility’s equipment and switching gear.

The facility is in the shadow of the Jane Addams Tollway and tucked behind the $1 billion, 150-megawatt Prime Data Centers campus taking shape on a prominent entryway corner of town.

The substation that broke ground in 2019 and opened in 2021 was built with the capacity of 300 megawatts; the expansion will enable about 2,100 megawatts of new load on the system to serve business and residential customers, ComEd officials said.

“It’s basically full,” said Mark Baranek, ComEd’s senior vice president of technical services. “That’s a pretty quick load growth.”

Crews from general contractor Ruiz Construction Systems will build an addition on the west side of the substation, add transformers, then tap into existing high-voltage power lines strung across towers that border the property.

It’s among 11 projects ComEd has planned through 2030 to boost transmission capacity throughout the region, with a price tag totaling more than $1 billion.

The utility already has begun design work, engineering and soil testing on property to the east of the Elk Grove substation, with an eye toward further growth. And officials plan to cut the ribbon in three weeks on their larger Itasca substation, which also underwent expansion in 2017.

Along the way they’ll add more transmission lines to connect between the substations in Elk Grove, Itasca and Elmhurst to accommodate the new data centers and other high load customers throughout the corridor.

In Elk Grove alone, there are 14 of the computer storage sites currently operating, with another 13 planned or in the works.

“Can we handle what’s in the queue? Yes,” Baranek said. “We’re building the infrastructure to support it, and in the near future there’s enough in Illinois in terms of generation to support that.”

But he said with further “speculative” growth in data center development, “eventually, that’s going to run out.”

An energy reform package that would have addressed the power demands of data centers, among myriad issues, stalled in Springfield during the recent spring legislative session.

Baranek said ComEd will continue to talk with legislators and other state leaders about the forecast in resource adequacy.

Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson has been a major booster of data centers because of what they mean for local government coffers, paying millions in property and utility taxes though requiring little in the way of municipal police or fire services.

In early 2024, Johnson complained ComEd was moving too slow on building substations to support more data centers, but during the Friday ceremonial groundbreaking, he lauded the utility.

“Power is what ComEd has given us, and we need so much of, and they’re coming through for us,” he said.