CyrusOne director Bradd Hout is hoping to clear the air after the Sangamon County Board tabled a vote on approving its data center last month.

AUBURN, Ill. (WAND) - CyrusOne director Bradd Hout is hoping to clear the air after the Sangamon County Board tabled a vote on approving its data center last month.

"CyrusOne, we've been around for 25 years, and the facilities we built in the 2000s, early 2000s, they're still operational today," Hout said. 

One major issue the board heard from the community was noise. Neighbors near the CyrusOne facility in Aurora have complained about noise from generators. CyrusOne said the Sangamon County site will be different. 

"They're very different sites. In Aurora, we have 175 to 200 residences within a half-mile radius. Here in Sangamon County, we have zero occupied residences within a half mile," Hout said.  

Another big question: power. Data centers require massive amounts of electricity, and this one is expected to use up to 636 megawatts. That's enough to power more than 300,000 homes. Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative CEO Sean Middleton said the grid can handle it. 

"I'm the one [who] did the application, and it went through the intense study process with the AMR transmission services, so they could look at it locally with all their interconnected systems to see that it would have the capacity," Middleton said.  

Middleton explains the co-op gets its power through a company called NextEra Energy, with supply ultimately coming from Ameren. Some residents worry that demand from the data center could drive up their electric bills.

"We already have our wholesale procurement locked in on a long-term contract basis with our supplier. And we're allowing CyrusOne to be able to get power from the market through our wholesaler ... some of the price spikes that we saw across the Midwest due to those capacity auctions with myself this last summer, our members didn't see any increase at all," Middleton said.  

The contract with Ameren runs through 2033, but a recent report from the Illinois Power Agency warns the grid could face capacity issues as soon as 2031.

CyrusOne said the project would bring economic benefits, including at least 500 construction jobs and about 100 permanent positions. The company also projects that the Data center would generate about $6 million in annual tax revenue. 

"We've made voluntary grants to surrounding school districts … and commitments to local fire districts, helping with equipment and training upgrades." 

The Sangamon County Board is expected to vote on the data center at 6 p.m. Tuesday inside the BOS Center in Springfield.

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