Former Mine Datacenter Sites in Illinois
At a glance
Decommissioned or active mining land. Mine sites often retain heavy electrical service and water rights from prior operations, and many sit near coal-plant substations now freeing up grid capacity.
Top former mine sites in Illinois
| Site | Type | County | Voltage | Capacity | Queue wait | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Rock Island County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 55.2 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 55.0 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 55.0 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 54.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Peoria County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 54.2 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Woodford County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Woodford County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.9 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Woodford County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | St. Clair County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | St. Clair County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.3 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 53.0 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Pope County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.8 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Peoria County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Kendall County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.7 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Tazewell County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | St. Clair County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.6 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Madison County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.5 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Champaign County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Champaign County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Champaign County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Champaign County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.4 |
| Mine Site | Former Mine | Cook County | — | — | 4.8 yrs | 52.3 |
How does Illinois compare with other states for former mine sites?
With 368 sites, Illinois ranks 16th of the 50 states that have any former mine candidate sites. Kentucky leads with 5,049. Nationally, former mine sites average 49.7/100 DC Readiness, below the 53.0 average across all site types. Across every site type, Illinois averages 53.6, the 26th-highest of 52 states, and its candidate sites face an average interconnection-queue wait of 4.8 years.
Where are the highest-scoring former mine sites in Illinois?
The top 25 range from 55.2 to 52.3 on the 0–100 DC Readiness Score. They are concentrated in Tazewell County (8), Champaign County (4), Woodford County (3) and St. Clair County (3). By grid region, 23 are in MISO and 2 are in PJM.
County pages: Tazewell County · Champaign County · Woodford County · St. Clair County
What power, fiber and flood exposure do these former mine sites have?
Their counties have a median of 11 fixed fiber broadband providers in FCC data. The median distance to the nearest internet exchange facility is 22 km. The median interconnection-queue wait in their markets is 4.8 years. None of the 1 with a mapped FEMA flood zone sits in a high-risk (A or V) zone. 1 lies within 25 km of a binding transmission constraint.
Frequently asked questions
How many former mine datacenter sites are in Illinois?
GridCensus catalogs 368 former mine datacenter candidate sites in Illinois, 1% of the national total for this type (16th of 50 states).
What is a former mine datacenter site?
Decommissioned or active mining land. Mine sites often retain heavy electrical service and water rights from prior operations, and many sit near coal-plant substations now freeing up grid capacity.
What is the best former mine datacenter site in Illinois?
By DC Readiness Score, Mine Site in Rock Island County ranks first at 55.2/100, followed by Mine Site in Tazewell County at 55.0.
Which Illinois counties have the best former mine sites?
The top 25 former mine sites in Illinois are concentrated in Tazewell County (8), Champaign County (4), Woodford County (3) and St. Clair County (3).
How does Illinois score for datacenters overall?
All 3,641 scored sites in Illinois average 53.6/100 DC Readiness, the 26th-highest of 52 states, against a national average of 53.0.
More on former mine sites and Illinois
- All datacenter sites in Illinois· 3,641 sites
- Former Mine datacenter sites nationwide· 26,205 sites
- Industrial sites in Illinois· 1,441 sites
- Greenfield sites in Illinois· 913 sites
- Substation-Adjacent sites in Illinois· 795 sites
- Federal Excess sites in Illinois· 89 sites
- Brownfield sites in Illinois· 33 sites
Former Mine sites in other states
- Former Mine sites in Kentucky· 5,049 sites
- Former Mine sites in Pennsylvania· 3,356 sites
- Former Mine sites in West Virginia· 2,495 sites
- Former Mine sites in Virginia· 1,614 sites
- Former Mine sites in Alabama· 1,069 sites
- Former Mine sites in Texas· 935 sites
- Former Mine sites in Ohio· 925 sites
- Former Mine sites in Tennessee· 661 sites
Dataset updated . Screening estimates derived from public data sources.
About this data
Source: GridCensus composite of HIFLD transmission and substation data, EIA, FEMA National Risk Index, FCC broadband data, PeeringDB and ISO interconnection queues, as published November 12, 2026 — GridCensus refreshes it monthly. See the methodology for how records are matched, cleaned and scored.
Cite as: GridCensus, “Former Mine datacenter sites in Illinois”, https://gridcensus.com/site-types/mine/illinois (data as of November 12, 2026).
Go deeper than the public screen
Every site and score for Former Mine sites in 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.