ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The warehouses of the digital age are arriving with a familiar pitch: jobs, construction work and new tax base.
But from northern Illinois into southern Wisconsin, the fast-growing push to build data centers is colliding with a blunt local fear that massive new electricity demand will translate into higher utility bills for everyone else.
That concern is no longer theoretical, according to national and regional studies tracking how data centers are changing electric planning…