ComEd's newest substation in Elk Grove Village is the most compact substation to date, with all equipment and switchgear located in one building. Offered by ComEd

ComEd has completed the construction of a new substation in Elk Grove Village, which will power the three Microsoft data centers planned for the Elk Grove Science Park and other proposed data centers in the town. Brian Hill | Staff Photographer, May 2021

ComEd has completed the construction of its latest substation in Elk Grove Village to help power the data center hub in the Midwest.

The 5-acre site at 1500 Midway Court, in the shadow of the Jane Addams toll road, will handle the transmission system and expand the utility's distribution network in the northwestern suburbs.

The substation is located at the foot of the proposed $1 billion, 150 MW data center park. Prime Data Centers, Corp., headquartered in San Francisco, has proposed to house its servers, cables, and related equipment in three 3-story buildings covering 22 acres on the northwest corner of Higgins and Busse highways.

It is not far from the $1 billion Elk Grove Science and Technology Park, where Microsoft is building three 400,000-square-foot data center buildings — President Joe Biden visited a construction site last month. The 85-acre science and technology park already has a 164,000-square-foot data center operated by the T5 data center.

ComEd broke ground on a substation in the fall of 2019, with a view to building and expanding data centers in and around the new technology park and the larger O’Hare market. All equipment and switchgear are contained in a building, making it the most compact substation built by a utility company.

"I give ComEd the honor because they have been able to provide what (data center) needs most, and that is electricity," said Mayor Craig Johnson.

Johnson said that ComEd is planning to build two other substations in the area: one next to Microsoft in the technology park where the former Elk Grove fire station is located, and the other in the proposed Prime data center campus.

The new substation is adjacent to the planned Prime campus, which is Elk Grove's latest proposed data center. The village supports efforts to attract data centers to towns, through a complex package combination, allowing the village to acquire property and sell it to technology companies.

The planning committee hearing on the first phase of the project is scheduled to be held on November 29. Upon completion, the facility will become Elk Grove's 12th data center.

The new substation was built after ComEd's Itasca substation was expanded in 2017. The area is served by two other substations in Elk Grove and two other substations in Mount Prospect.