Zion Energy Center
BrownfieldZion, Lake, Illinois · Zion Energy LLC
Zion Energy Center is a natural gas plant in Zion, Lake, Illinois. Retired generation sites are among the most attractive datacenter redevelopment targets: the existing interconnection was sized for roughly 398 MW of generation, so the grid hookup, transmission rights, and often cooling-water access are already in place — collapsing the speed-to-power timeline versus a greenfield build.
Former use & capacity
Grid hookup & remediation
Site conditions & market — Lake County
County-level intelligence for this site's location — the power economics, water, hazard, connectivity, and workforce a developer screens before ever visiting. Assembled from FEMA NRI, BLS QCEW, FCC BDC, USGS water-use, and EIA.
Market & workforce
Power economics & interconnection
Water & cooling
Hazard, flood & connectivity
County-level context — address-level utility offerings and flood zoning vary within the county. Confirm site-specific service with the utility and a Phase I ESA.
Nearby brownfield & retired-generation sites
A proximity screen of other retired-plant, contaminated, and EPA-flagged sites near Zion Energy Center — the environmental neighborhood, ranked by legacy grid capacity.
| Site | Former use | Legacy MW | Distance | Cleanup status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pleasant Prairie | coal plant | 1,235 | 4.2 mi | — |
| Waukegan | coal plant | 803 | 7.7 mi | — |
| South Oak Creek | coal plant | 618 | 25.7 mi | — |
| Zion Landfill Gas to Energy Facility | natural gas plant | 7 | 0.5 mi | — |
| Lake Gas Recovery | natural gas plant | 3 | 26.0 mi | — |
Derived from GridCensus's retired-generator & EPA brownfield dataset. Not a substitute for an ASTM E1527 Phase I environmental radius report.
Get alerts
Track Zion Energy Center
Get an email when its DC-readiness score, available capacity, or interconnection-queue status changes.
Nearby datacenter candidate sites
Scored candidate sites near Zion Energy Center, ranked by DC Readiness.
| Site | Type | State | County | Voltage | Capacity | Queue wait | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNKNOWN121936 | Substation-Adjacent | IL | Kenosha County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 3.8 yrs | 71.8 |
| OAK CREEK STATION | Substation-Adjacent | WI | Milwaukee County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 2.8 yrs | 71.4 |
| PLEASANT PRAIRIE | Substation-Adjacent | WI | Kenosha County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 2.8 yrs | 70.2 |
| UNKNOWN133790 | Substation-Adjacent | IL | Lake County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 3.8 yrs | 69.4 |
| ZION | Substation-Adjacent | IL | Kenosha County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 3.8 yrs | 68.8 |
| PROSPECT HEIGHTS | Substation-Adjacent | IL | Lake County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 3.8 yrs | 68.1 |
| TAP137894 | Substation-Adjacent | IL | Lake County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 3.8 yrs | 67.7 |
| RACINE | Substation-Adjacent | WI | Racine County | 345 kV | 600 MW | 2.8 yrs | 66.8 |
Nearby internet exchanges
- Equinix CH3 - Elk GroveElk Grove Village, IL · 44 networks
- Northwestern University co-location facilityChicago, IL · 20 networks
- Digital Realty CHI (2200 Busse Rd.)Elk Grove Village, IL · 20 networks
- Level(3) Chicago (Kingsbury)Chicago, IL · 15 networks
See all datacenter sites in Illinois →
Dataset updated . Screening estimates derived from public data sources.
Brownfield attributes are derived from EIA retired-generator and EPA public data. Existing capacity reflects the retired plant's historical nameplate, not deliverable interconnection for a new load. Confirm reusable interconnection rights, remediation status, and site availability with the utility, ISO, and current owner.
Go deeper than the public screen
Every site and score for Zion Energy Center, Zion, Lake, Illinois is free to browse. Pro adds Watchtower on 25 sites, alerts when new candidate sites, datacenters or interconnection-queue requests appear in your markets, score and capacity history, and CSV export. Enterprise adds team seats, weekly data files for all 147,272 sites, the REST API and an MCP server for AI tools.