Data centers may not be constructed, established, or expanded within 3 miles of an Equity Investment Eligible Community or, in Chicago, an Environmental Justice Neighborhood, unless the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency completes a qualifying cumulative-impact assessment, conducts required public engagement and informed-consent procedures, and finds that the project will not create disproportionate health, welfare, or environmental risks.

Applicants seeking the environmental-justice siting waiver must pay the full estimated assessment cost and satisfy specified cumulative-impact, public-engagement, informed-consent, and environmental-risk requirements.

Permits for data centers subject to the environmental-justice siting rule must impose emissions limits based on simultaneous operation of all on-site power sources at their full potential to emit.

Before construction, a developer must enter into and publicly disclose a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement with a Community Advisory Board or Community Coalition, provide measurable community benefits, and create and fund a Community Benefit Fund.

Within 30 days after applying for zoning, siting, permitting, or construction approval, a developer must provide public notice, including mailed notice to landowners within 5 miles, newspaper publication for two consecutive weeks, notice to local governments, and library postings.

A governmental unit may not enter into a nondisclosure agreement concerning the siting, planning, construction, or operation of a data center.

Developers must maintain and quarterly update a publicly accessible community website reporting water use, emissions, monitoring data, Community Benefits Agreement performance, mitigation, and workforce information.

Developers must participate in at least two public meetings each year for five years after the site begins operating.

Hyperscale data centers with peak demand of at least 50 megawatts must make annual payments based on demand, ranging from $2 million for 50–99.9 MW to $12 million for 1,000 MW or more, adjusted annually for inflation.

Data-center owners and operators must prepare and publicly post a detailed Water Resources Plan within six months after the Act's effective date, covering withdrawals, deliveries, consumption, discharges, water sources, source impacts, infrastructure costs, conservation, and cooling alternatives.

Data centers must track direct and indirect water use and submit and publicly post updated water-use reports quarterly by January 10, April 10, July 10, and October 10.

Each data center must obtain and publicly post an Illinois State Water Survey Water Resources Impact Report and pay a $50,000 fee for each report.

Data centers must develop, submit, and publicly post a Water Scarcity Plan within six months after the Act's effective date, addressing 25-, 50-, and 100-year drought scenarios and potential staged withdrawal reductions, curtailment, recycling, thermal-load reductions, load shedding, or relocation.

After water-regulation rules take effect, a data center may not operate without a Water Impact Permit.

A Water Impact Permit may be issued only upon findings and conditions concerning no adverse resource impact, required community water-supply and wastewater-treatment upgrades, water-efficiency standards, required fees, and, for new facilities, cooling at least as water-efficient as closed-loop cooling.

Water Impact Permit applications require public notice, a 45-day public-comment period, and at least two public hearings, including one in person in the county or census tract where the facility is proposed.

Water Impact Permits last five years, require renewal applications six months before expiration, and may be suspended, denied, or revoked if the data center causes or is likely to cause an adverse resource impact.

Data centers must pay annual water-impact fees beginning July 1, 2026, initially $20,000 and increasing to $60,000 after rulemaking, in addition to the $50,000 Water Resources Impact Report fee and any required payments for water-supply or wastewater-treatment upgrades.

Hyperscale data centers must comply with the most stringent applicable requirements among the latest International Energy Conservation Code, specified ASHRAE 90.4 provisions, and Illinois-specific data-center energy-code requirements.

For qualifying air-permit applications submitted at least six months after the Act's effective date, diesel backup generators must meet standards at least as protective as EPA Tier 4, operate only as emergency or standby units, and obtain a CAAPP or federally enforceable State operating permit.

For qualifying air-permit applications submitted at least six months after the Act's effective date, natural-gas backup generators must meet standards at least as protective as EPA Tier 2, operate only as emergency or standby units, and obtain a CAAPP or federally enforceable State operating permit.

A noncompliant diesel or natural-gas backup generator may operate for no more than 24 consecutive hours during a power outage.

Owners or operators of data-center backup generators must submit and publicly post an annual air-quality assessment covering emissions, permit violations, ambient monitoring data, and above-ground fuel-storage tanks and their compliance history.

A CAAPP or federally enforceable State operating permit for a data-center diesel or natural-gas backup generator must include a public hearing.

Hyperscale data centers, generally those with actual or forecast peak demand above 50,000 kilowatts, must annually report monthly energy and water consumption and efficiency measures to the Illinois Commerce Commission by March 31; violations may result in fines of up to $10,000 per violation.

All electric utilities must file special hyperscale data-center tariffs within 90 days after the Act's effective date, allocating utility investments, including high-voltage infrastructure, to the data center rather than other customers.

Hyperscale data-center tariffs must include protections against stranded costs, including minimum charges, minimum contract terms and monthly demand, collateral, advance-notice requirements, capacity-reduction fees, and premature-exit or termination fees.

Hyperscale data centers must satisfy enhanced interconnection requirements concerning ride-through capability, data and model sharing, disturbance monitoring, power factor, power quality, oscillation damping, ramping, and protection coordination.

Hyperscale data centers must use flexible interconnection: load supported by new, deliverable capacity may receive firm service, while unsupported load must be served on a non-firm basis and may be required to reduce or defer consumption during grid stress or other specified conditions.

A hyperscale data center seeking firm service must provide new, deliverable clean capacity equal to its maximum demand; eligible resources include generation, storage, demand response, energy efficiency, and virtual power plants.

Non-firm hyperscale service agreements must specify mandatory-curtailment conditions, response speed, dispatch and monitoring requirements, performance verification, triggering events, and penalties for failing to provide required load flexibility.

To qualify for fast-track interconnection, a hyperscale data center must provide new deliverable clean energy and demand-side resources covering at least 80% of forecast annual energy and capacity needs by January 1, 2030, 90% by January 1, 2035, and 100% by January 1, 2045, while covering at least 25%, 35%, and 45%, respectively, of backup-generation needs.

Before providing service, the utility must review the data center's Clean Energy Supply Plan and enter into a service agreement with compliance milestones and reporting requirements; the Illinois Commerce Commission may investigate, audit, impose monetary penalties, or suspend service for noncompliance.

A municipal or cooperative utility may not contract to serve a hyperscale data center until it updates its integrated resource plan, issues a renewable-generation request for proposals, prepares a load forecast and ten-year action plan, provides public notice, and holds a stakeholder meeting at least 30 days after the updated plan is posted.

Municipal and cooperative utility tariffs must require contract terms at least as long as the depreciation period or power-purchase-agreement term for additional generation, minimum demand charges covering capital expenditures, upfront payment for transmission facilities, and rates designed to avoid shifting costs to existing customers.

Within five years after service begins, a municipal or cooperative utility must procure firm, deliverable, additional clean capacity at least equal to a hyperscale data center's non-interruptible demand; the capacity generally must have begun operating no more than 12 months before the data center is expected to operate.

A data center within 3 miles of an Equity Investment Eligible Community or certain Chicago Environmental Justice Neighborhoods may proceed if the applicant pays for a comprehensive cumulative-impact assessment and the Illinois EPA finds no disproportionate health, welfare, or environmental risk.

Illinois EPA emissions limits for data centers must account for all power sources operating simultaneously at full potential, allowing a project to operate if it meets the combined limits.

A data center may obtain a federally enforceable state operating permit that limits potential emissions below the major-source threshold and thereby avoid CAAPP permitting, if applicable requirements are met.

A source with a complete CAAPP application generally is not treated as violating the requirement to hold a CAAPP permit while the Illinois EPA reviews the application, unless the applicant fails to provide requested information.

A CAAPP source with a timely, complete renewal application may continue operating under its existing permit terms until the renewal is issued.

A CAAPP permit may provide a permit shield treating compliance with expressly identified permit conditions as compliance with specified applicable requirements, although later requirements are not covered unless the permit is modified.

A CAAPP source may make qualifying operational changes without a prior permit revision when the changes do not trigger Title I modifications, remain within permitted emissions, and are reported to the Illinois EPA and USEPA, generally with at least 7 days' advance notice.

A CAAPP source may implement qualifying minor permit modifications immediately after filing the application, subject to applicable requirements and proposed permit conditions during review.

A CAAPP permit must include an emergency affirmative defense for certain technology-based emission-limit violations caused by sudden, unforeseeable events beyond the source's control, if the source operated properly, minimized emissions, and promptly reported the emergency.

A qualifying backup generator that becomes noncompliant with the applicable Tier 4 diesel or Tier 2 natural-gas standard during a power outage may operate for up to 24 sequential hours without that operation being treated as a permit violation.

The Illinois EPA generally must decide a complete Water Impact Permit application within 6 months after the applicable rules take effect, provided statutory requirements are met, including no adverse resource impact, payment of fees, water-efficiency compliance, and cooling at least as water-efficient as closed-loop cooling for newly constructed facilities.

Water Impact Permits are valid for 5 years, and a data center with a timely renewal application may continue operating under the expiring permit's terms while the Agency processes the renewal if the delay is not the permittee's fault.

Eligible large energy customers, potentially including hyperscale data centers, may use qualifying long-term renewable-energy-credit arrangements through the self-direct renewable portfolio program and receive equivalent reductions in certain utility volumetric renewable-procurement charges.

A hyperscale data center may reduce renewable-energy procurement charges by developing, co-locating with, or entering qualifying long-term agreements for new, additive clean-energy generation or storage; the credit may reach 100% of the applicable charge, subject to conditions such as contract-duration, labor, equity, and other program requirements.

A hyperscale data center may reduce energy-storage procurement charges by developing eligible new storage resources through its Clean Energy Supply Plan or bring-your-own-clean-energy option, but the reduction cannot exceed 100% of the storage-related charge and the resources do not count toward the Agency's separate procurement targets.

Utilities must establish special hyperscale-data-center tariffs and allocate utility investments needed to serve those customers, including high-voltage infrastructure, to the data centers rather than spreading those costs across other rate classes.

Hyperscale-data-center tariffs may provide financing and cost certainty through minimum charges, minimum contract terms, minimum billing demand, collateral, advance-notice requirements, capacity-reduction fees, and premature-exit or termination fees.

A hyperscale data center may receive firm electric service for the portion of its load backed by new, deliverable clean capacity; unsupported load may receive nonfirm service subject to curtailment or deferral conditions.

Required tariffs must establish a fast-track interconnection process for qualifying hyperscale projects that bring new, deliverable clean-energy resources, with milestones requiring coverage of at least 80% of forecast energy and capacity needs by 2030, 90% by 2035, and 100% by 2045, plus specified renewable backup-generation percentages.

A data center may satisfy clean-capacity obligations with new wind, solar, storage, demand response, energy efficiency, virtual power plants, and other clean technologies developed by the applicant, procured from third parties, or sourced from other customers.

Utility and data-center service agreements must define nonfirm-load curtailment, dispatch, monitoring, verification, penalties, and triggering events such as reliability emergencies, anticipated peaks, or high wholesale prices; the Commission must ensure sufficient transparency and certainty for project financing and development.

For municipal and cooperative utilities, hyperscale-data-center tariffs must include minimum contract terms tied to the depreciation period or a power-purchase agreement, minimum demand charges sufficient to cover capital expenditures, and upfront payment of required transmission-facility costs.

Energy and water usage disclosures may be submitted confidentially and treated as proprietary, protecting commercially sensitive operating information.

Hyperscale data centers in a qualifying quantum-computing campus enterprise zone, and entities owned and operated by federally funded research and development centers, are excluded from the measure's hyperscale-data-center definition for its energy-and-water reporting requirements.

Construction, establishment, or expansion of a data center is prohibited within 3 miles of an Equity Investment Eligible Community or a Chicago Environmental Justice Neighborhood unless the Illinois EPA approves a comprehensive cumulative-impact assessment finding no disproportionate health, welfare, or environmental risks. The applicant must pay the assessment cost in advance, and the assessment must include meaningful public engagement.

Before construction, a developer must enter into and publicly disclose a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement with a Community Advisory Board or Community Coalition, including a community benefit fund and measurable community-benefit commitments.

Governmental units may not enter into nondisclosure agreements concerning the siting, planning, construction, or operation of a data center.

Within 30 days after applying for zoning, siting, permitting, or construction approval, a developer must notify relevant local governments, mail notice to landowners within 5 miles, publish newspaper notices once a week for 2 consecutive weeks, provide notices for posting in public libraries, and file proof of notice with the Agency.

A developer must maintain and quarterly update a publicly accessible website disclosing water use, emissions, monitoring data, community-benefit commitments and spending, mitigation progress, and workforce information, and must participate in at least 2 public meetings per year for 5 years after operations begin.

For data centers within the specified 3-mile equity or environmental-justice areas, the Agency must calculate emissions from all facility power sources operating simultaneously at full potential and impose limits adequate to protect residents within the 3-mile radius.

Air-pollution construction permits for qualifying diesel backup generators applied for more than 6 months after the Act's effective date must require standards at least as protective as federal Tier 4 standards, emergency- or standby-only operation, and a qualifying Illinois or federally enforceable operating permit.

Air-pollution construction permits for qualifying natural-gas backup generators applied for more than 6 months after the Act's effective date must require standards at least as protective as federal Tier 2 standards, emergency- or standby-only operation, and a qualifying Illinois or federally enforceable operating permit.

Owners or operators of qualifying data centers with diesel- or natural-gas-powered backup generators must annually submit and publicly post an air-quality assessment covering carbon and criteria-pollutant emissions, permit violations, ambient monitoring data, and above-ground fuel-storage tanks.

A CAAPP permit or federally enforceable State operating permit for a data-center diesel or natural-gas backup generator must include a public hearing under Illinois EPA permit-hearing procedures.

Hyperscale data centers must comply with whichever is most stringent among the latest International Energy Conservation Code, the specified ASHRAE 90.4 provisions, and Illinois-specific data-center energy-code requirements.

Within 6 months after the Act's effective date, each data-center owner or operator must prepare and publicly post a detailed water resources plan addressing projected water use, withdrawals, cooling alternatives, water sources, discharges, conservation, infrastructure costs, and related impacts.

Data-center owners or operators must track and publicly report water intake, withdrawals, deliveries, consumption, discharges, and indirect energy-related water use. Reports are due January 10, April 10, July 10, and October 10 and must include required monthly and annual usage information.

Each data-center owner or operator must obtain a Water Resources Impact Report from the Illinois State Water Survey and pay a $50,000 fee per report. The report must address water availability, sustainability, water quality, ecological uses, flooding, stormwater, and other hydrologic impacts.

Within 6 months after the Act's effective date, each data-center owner or operator must develop, submit to the Agency, maintain, and publicly post a Water Scarcity Plan addressing 25-, 50-, and 100-year drought scenarios, including staged withdrawal reductions, curtailment of nonessential uses, recycling and reuse, thermal-load reductions, and, when necessary, load shedding or relocation.

After the Agency's water rules take effect, no person may operate a data center without a valid Water Impact Permit. The application must include current water plans and reports, a Water Resources Impact Report, a Water Scarcity Plan, applicable cost-of-service studies, and proof of compliance with required water and wastewater rates.

A Water Impact Permit may be issued only if the data center will not cause an adverse resource impact, will pay for required community water-supply and wastewater-treatment upgrades and water-impact fees, and will meet water-efficiency standards.

Data centers proposed after the water-permit rules take effect must use cooling methods at least as water-efficient as closed-loop cooling and meet minimum water-efficiency and conservation standards established by rule.

Water Impact Permit applications require a 45-day public-comment period and at least 2 public hearings, including at least 1 in person in the same county or census tract as the proposed data center. Permits last 5 years, and renewal applications must be filed 6 months before expiration.

The Agency may suspend, deny, or revoke a Water Impact Permit, or order a data center to suspend operations, if the facility has caused or is likely to cause an adverse resource impact.

Data centers must pay annual water-impact fees beginning July 1, 2026, of $20,000 initially and $60,000 after the applicable rulemaking, in addition to the $50,000 fee for each Water Resources Impact Report.

Hyperscale data-center customers with peak demand of at least 50 megawatts must make annual payments to the Hyperscale Data Center Public Benefits and Affordability Fund: $2 million for 50–99.9 megawatts, $4 million for 100–249.9 megawatts, $6 million for 250–499.9 megawatts, $8 million for 500–749.9 megawatts, $10 million for 750–999.9 megawatts, and $12 million for 1,000 megawatts or more, subject to Consumer Price Index adjustments.

Beginning January 1, 2027, hyperscale data centers, generally those with demand above 50,000 kilowatts, must annually report monthly energy and water consumption and efficiency measures to the Illinois Commerce Commission by March 31. Violations may result in fines of up to $10,000 per violation, with exceptions for certain quantum-computing enterprise-zone entities and federally funded research and development centers.

Electric utilities must file specialized tariffs for hyperscale data centers within 90 days after the Act's effective date, and the Illinois Commerce Commission must review each tariff within 240 days. A rejected tariff must be refiled within no more than 90 days.

Hyperscale-data-center tariffs must allocate utility investments needed to serve the data center, including high-voltage infrastructure above 100 kilovolts, to the data center rather than other rate classes.

Hyperscale-data-center tariffs may impose minimum charges, minimum contract terms and billing demand, time-variant rates, collateral requirements, advance-notice periods, capacity-reduction fees, and premature-exit or termination fees.

Hyperscale-data-center interconnections must meet additional large-load technical requirements involving ride-through capability, data and model sharing, disturbance monitoring, power factor, power quality, oscillation damping, ramping, and protection coordination.

Hyperscale data centers must use flexible interconnection. Load backed by new, deliverable bring-your-own capacity may receive firm service, while unsupported requested load must receive non-firm service and be reducible or deferrable during peak grid stress or other specified conditions.

To obtain firm service, a hyperscale data center must provide new clean capacity equal to its maximum demand or accept mandatory load flexibility for the uncovered portion. Eligible resources include new generation, storage, demand response, efficiency, and virtual power plants; fossil-fuel reductions do not qualify.

Hyperscale data centers seeking firm service or fast-track interconnection must meet escalating clean-energy commitments: at least 80% of forecast annual energy and capacity requirements by January 1, 2030, 90% by January 1, 2035, and 100% by January 1, 2045, along with backup-generation clean-resource percentages of 25%, 35%, and 45%, respectively.

Before serving a hyperscale data center, a utility must review its Clean Energy Supply Plan and enter into an electric service agreement containing compliance milestones and reporting requirements. The Commission may investigate compliance and impose monetary penalties or suspend electric service for noncompliant operation.

Before entering a service agreement with a hyperscale data center, a municipal or cooperative utility must update its integrated resource plan, issue a request for renewable-generation proposals, prepare a new load forecast and 10-year action plan, publicly post the update, provide at least 30 days' notice, and hold a stakeholder meeting.

Municipal and cooperative utility tariffs must impose a minimum contract term at least as long as the depreciation term or power-purchase agreement for additional generation, require full upfront payment for transmission facilities needed to serve the data center, and set demand charges and energy rates so existing customers do not bear the added costs.

A municipal or cooperative utility must procure, within 5 years after service begins, firm clean capacity at least equal to the hyperscale data center's non-interruptible demand. The capacity must be deliverable and generally new, having begun operation no more than 12 months before the data center's expected operation.

A qualifying large-load or hyperscale data center may use a self-direct renewable-energy program to reduce utility renewable-energy procurement charges by obtaining credits from qualifying new, deliverable clean-energy resources or storage. Eligibility generally requires demand above 10,000 kilowatts, qualifying resources, and contracts of at least 10 years; the credit may reach 100% but cannot eliminate the customer’s proportionate Illinois Solar for All costs.

Incremental generation from expanding or repowering an existing qualifying clean-energy facility may count toward a hyperscale data center’s self-direct renewable-energy eligibility.

The hyperscale data center self-direct program must accept applications quarterly, with application windows lasting at least two weeks, and an approved customer remains eligible through the qualifying contract term subject to reporting and notice requirements.

A hyperscale data center may reduce its energy-storage procurement charges by developing otherwise eligible new storage resources through the bring-your-own-clean-energy option and including them in a Clean Energy Supply Plan. The reduction cannot exceed the data center’s energy-storage-related charge, and the resources do not count toward the Agency’s own procurement targets.

A hyperscale data center may receive firm electric service for the portion of its requested load backed by new, deliverable capacity that it develops, procures, or sources through a Clean Energy Supply Plan; remaining load may receive non-firm service subject to load-reduction requirements.

Utilities must provide flexible interconnection for hyperscale data centers, allowing non-firm load to be reduced or deferred during reliability emergencies, anticipated peak hours, high wholesale prices, and other specified grid-stress conditions.

Hyperscale data centers that bring qualifying new clean-energy resources may receive expedited or fast-track load-interconnection review ahead of non-qualifying hyperscale projects. The measure sets thresholds of at least 80% of forecast energy and capacity needs plus 25% of backup-generation needs by 2030, 90% and 35% by 2035, and 100% and 45% by 2045.

Clean capacity supporting firm service may include new wind, solar, storage, demand response, energy efficiency, virtual power plants, other clean demand-side resources, on-site load reductions, third-party programs, or payments into utility-administered efficiency, demand-response, or battery-storage programs.

Within five years after service begins, a utility serving a hyperscale data center must procure firm, deliverable clean capacity at least equal to the data center’s non-interruptible demand. Eligible resources generally must be new, additional, and located on-site or within the same regional transmission organization.

Electric utilities must file dedicated hyperscale data center tariffs within 90 days, including expedited interconnection and terms addressing large-load operating characteristics, minimum charges, contract duration, billing demand, collateral, notice periods, exit fees, and infrastructure-cost allocation.

Utilities must develop technical interconnection requirements for hyperscale data centers covering matters such as ride-through, data and model sharing, disturbance monitoring, power factor, power quality, oscillation damping, ramping, and protection coordination.

Before serving a hyperscale data center, a utility must update its integrated resource plan, prepare a new load forecast and 10-year action plan, issue a request for renewable-resource proposals, and conduct public stakeholder review.

Municipal and cooperative utilities must create hyperscale-specific tariffs before contracting to serve a hyperscale data center. The tariffs must include minimum terms tied to the depreciation period or power-purchase agreement for added generation, minimum demand charges, and service-related transmission-cost provisions.

A diesel or natural-gas backup generator at a qualifying data center may operate for up to 24 consecutive hours after becoming noncompliant with the applicable Tier 4 or Tier 2 standard during a power outage without that operation being treated as a permit violation, but it must resume compliance sooner if compliance is achieved.

For general permits under the Environmental Protection Act, an applicant may deem the permit issued if the Agency takes no final action within 90 days after filing, or within 180 days when public notice or a hearing is required. The provision does not apply to NPDES, RCRA, UIC, or CCR permits.

A data center that timely submits a Water Impact Permit renewal application may continue operating under the existing permit’s terms while renewal is pending if the Agency has not issued a replacement permit by the expiration date through no fault of the permittee.

The Agency must decide a complete Water Impact Permit application within six months and issue the permit when statutory water-resource, cost-recovery, cooling-efficiency, conservation, fee, and adverse-impact requirements are satisfied. An approved permit remains valid for five years.

A Water Impact Permit applicant may reuse a water-resources plan, water-impact report, and water-scarcity plan prepared within the preceding three years instead of preparing entirely new documents for each application.

The prohibition on constructing, establishing, or expanding a data center within three miles of an Equity Investment Eligible Community—or, in Chicago, an Environmental Justice Neighborhood—may be waived if the Illinois EPA conducts a fully funded cumulative-impact assessment, meaningfully engages affected communities, and finds no health, welfare, or environmental risk.

Energy and water consumption disclosures submitted by hyperscale data centers may be treated as confidential and proprietary and exempt from Freedom of Information Act disclosure, with only aggregated and anonymized information made public.

A data center must execute and comply with a community benefit agreement with the host municipality or county as a condition of receiving and maintaining its certificate of exemption.

The community benefit agreement must require annual payments to the host community while the certificate is in effect. The minimum payment must be at least 10% of the property tax that would have been levied on the data center property without exemptions, abatements, or exclusions, based on the year before the agreement is entered into.

The host-community payments are additional to any property taxes, other taxes, or fees otherwise owed and cannot be credited against those obligations.

The data center operator must provide documentation demonstrating compliance with the community benefit requirements; failure to comply violates the memorandum of understanding and may result in suspension, revocation, or recapture of the exemption certificate.

To qualify for the exemption, a new data center or qualifying expansion generally must involve at least $250 million in capital investment over a 60-month period and create at least 20 new full-time or equivalent jobs over 60 months, with compensation at least 120% of the county average wage.

A qualifying data center must, within two years after being placed in service, certify that it is carbon neutral or obtain certification under an approved green-building or energy standard.

Construction or rehabilitation covered by the exemption requires the contractor and subcontractors to comply with responsible-bidder requirements under the Illinois Procurement Code.

Construction or rehabilitation covered by the exemption requires the contractor to enter into a project labor agreement approved by the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

Data centers receiving the exemption must annually report the total data center tax benefits received to the Department by May 31, covering the prior calendar year; failure to report may result in suspension or revocation of the exemption certificate.

The Department may not issue new exemption certificates after July 1, 2029, although certificates already in effect on that date are not affected.

Qualifying Illinois data centers may receive certificates exempting purchases from specified state and locally administered sales and use taxes, including the Retailers’ Occupation Tax, Use Tax, Service Use Tax, Service Occupation Tax, and certain local taxes. The data center must satisfy the bill’s eligibility requirements, including at least $250 million in qualifying capital investment and 20 new full-time or equivalent jobs.

The measure provides income-tax credits under Section 229 of the Illinois Income Tax Act, for qualifying data centers for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2019.

The tax exemption covers a broad range of qualified tangible personal property and building materials, including electrical, mechanical, cooling, computing, network, battery, and other data-center infrastructure, as well as installation, maintenance, repair, refurbishment, replacement, and materials physically incorporated into the facility.

A data-center exemption certificate may remain in effect for up to 20 calendar years, subject to the investment, job-creation, reporting, community-benefit, and other requirements in the measure and the required memorandum of understanding.

The incentive is available to new and existing data centers, including existing facilities making an upgrade, if they meet the bill’s capital-investment, job, compensation, and environmental-certification conditions.

The measure preserves existing exemption certificates that are in effect on July 1, 2029, although the Department may not issue new certificates under this program after that date.

Counties may impose construction standards for data centers, including limits on structure size and height, design requirements, and limits on the number of facilities within a geographic area.

Counties may regulate data-center siting in unincorporated areas outside a municipality’s zoning jurisdiction and the 1.5-mile radius surrounding that jurisdiction.

A county may not approve a data center within 3 miles of another municipality’s corporate boundaries without that municipality’s prior written consent.

Municipalities may regulate data-center siting within their zoning jurisdictions and within the 1.5-mile radius surrounding those jurisdictions.

A municipality may not approve a data center within 3 miles of another municipality’s corporate boundaries without that municipality’s prior written consent.

Counties and municipalities may impose water-resource protections for data centers, including limits on water withdrawal, water-reuse or conservation requirements, and safeguards against contamination.

Counties and municipalities may establish additional standards to mitigate noise pollution from data centers.

Before a county board makes a data-center siting decision, the county must hold at least one public hearing no more than 30 days before the decision and publish notice in a newspaper of general circulation in the county.

Before a municipality’s corporate authorities make a data-center siting decision, the municipality must hold at least one public hearing no more than 30 days before the decision and publish notice in a newspaper of general circulation in the municipality.