Last updated on June 29, 2026 at 04:00 p.m.

The construction of large data centers for artificial intelligence has become a central issue in local politics across the United States, and Champaign County is no exception. In late April, the Champaign County Board voted to extend a moratorium on data centers during a meeting that drew more than 100 community members to the Shields-Carter Meeting Room. Emily Rodriguez, vice-chair of the County Board and chair of the Data Center Activities Task Force, made the motion to extend the moratorium, giving the task force more time to develop regulations for data centers.

Andrew Rehn, a member of the Data Center Activities Task Force and Climate Policy Director at Prairie Rivers Network, distinguished between the large data centers which are being built across the U.S. for artificial intelligence and the smaller facilities the county is used to regulating. 

“The reason we’re in this position is that we had an existing data center ordinance for small data centers — well, actually for any data center,” Rehn said. “Because nobody thought about the big ones until the crazy era that we live in right now.” 

The moratorium applies to large data centers with more than 10,000 square feet of processing area.

Scope of the task force

The Data Center Activities Task Force, which the Champaign County Board created “to examine issues related to data center development,” is tasked with recommending potential amendments to the county’s ordinance on data centers. The task force, which last met Monday, has addressed topics such as large data centers’ water and energy use since March.

During Monday’s discussion, Michelle Jett, director of administration and the next county executive, directly addressed the 15 members of the public who attended the meeting and the dozens watching the livestream.

“I’m very happy to see we have so many people here,” Jett said. “I want to make sure it is very clear that the reason this task force exists is to write the best ordinance we possibly can under our current circumstances … The board has no legal authority to ban data centers.”

The county’s limited authority has shaped the task force’s work. According to Rodriguez, a temporary moratorium gives the county an opportunity to “draft language that would stand up under court scrutiny,” while an indefinite moratorium would be illegal under state law because Champaign County does not have home rule status.

“Counties that are not home rule — unless explicitly given authority to do something — cannot do it,” Rodriguez said. “And this is all in the state constitution.”

Article VII, Section 7 of the Illinois State Constitution confirms that counties which are not home rule units have “only powers granted to them by law.” 

Energy discussion

Monday’s meeting included a presentation on the regional energy market and a discussion of potential energy regulations for large data centers. A key point of discussion was where the energy for these data centers would come from and what percent of it would come from renewable sources, measured against each facility’s peak electrical demand.

“I think that the data center developers are claiming to have a lot of resources right now, and if they’re going to come here, I think it is entirely reasonable to expect them to bring entirely clean energy to power the data center and to help us meet some of the climate targets we need to meet,” Rehn said. “Not saying I want the data center here, but that’s what I think responsible development looks like.”  

During Monday’s meeting, Rehn said he would like the board to take a “more aggressive” approach than the proposed requirement that data centers meet 25% of their peak electrical demand with renewable energy.

Another point of discussion was whether energy generation would be on site in Champaign County or off-site while still feeding into the Midcontinent Independent System Operator grid. John Hall, director of planning and zoning, pointed to potential tension over solar farms taking up farmland.

“I attended a meeting at the farm bureau this past winter,” Hall said. “The view there was that Bring Your Own Clean Energy is just going to use up more best prime farmland for solar arrays.”

New renewable energy development in Champaign County would likely affect prime farmland. According to the Champaign County Department of Planning and Zoning, this is “because so much of Champaign County consists of best prime farmland soils, any development of a wind farm or PV solar farm is likely to be on best prime farmland.”

However, the Champaign County zoning ordinance requires solar farms that disturb prime farmland to offset that disturbance by establishing “vegetative ground cover.”

Next meeting

The task force will hold its next meeting on July 13, where it will discuss backup generators, noise, vibration and minimum separations.

“On local issues, this is actually where Champaign County has to rise to the occasion, because the state is going to do less on that,” Rehn said. “Questions about noise, siting, setbacks, about these vibration conversations, those are in the county domain.”

Data Center Activities Task Force meetings are held at the Bennett Administrative Center and livestreamed and recorded on Champaign County’s YouTube page.

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