Chicago-area residents oppose battery project, but it could help avoid higher taxes

CHICAGO - Over the last few months, Unit 32 has been looking at how the state’s new green energy push is colliding with rural communities.

On the surface, it’s a battle over a massive battery project. But after digging through timelines and budgets, that project might be an unexpected way out for communities desperate for cash.

Dig deeper:

McHenry County has long valued its peace and quiet until this year, when a new clean energy law took effect, and put their neighborhood at the center of a massive project.

According to the CEO of the Illinois Environmental Council, "The state incentivized over three gigawatts of storage to be built in Illinois by 2030 through a bill that included a number of protections for battery storage facilities."

One of those protections gives the state authority over battery storage projects, part of a growing infrastructure push changing America’s landscape.

"SB 25 takes away our locus of control, then the municipality, town, city, county have no say, and the state comes in with our money, and tells us what we're going to have to do. And that is… un-American," said resident and board member, Terri Greeno, who questioned her local control.

For her neighbors, that project might be the only way to dodge a tax hike. But for the Frye family, it puts them in the middle of a fight they didn’t ask for.

"Do I wanna leave here at my age? Heck no. Why would I wanna move at my own age, you know?" said Larry Frye.

Larry bought land in McHenry County 60 years ago and started farming mink, an industry famous for luxury fur. Now, a potential tax hike is driving up the pressure to sell. For his sons, Steve and Rob, growing up on the farm meant brutal hours — waking up at 7 a.m. every day to feed, water, and care for the animals, and doing it all over again at noon. It was the only life they’d ever known, and walking away from it was never part of the plan.

Generations of hard work turned into memories, after a cultural shift away from fur and a disease that wiped out their animals. That’s when the family made a decision they never expected to make.

"I mean a lot of it was a financial decision that you know the state itself is expensive enough to live in, and so we closed the farm down. We have land that's very valuable," Steve said.

The Monarch Grid Project

In 2021, the Fryes agreed to sell their land to Eolian Energy, one of many developers racing to build battery storage across the country. Their decision set off a chain reaction, turning their family farm into an exit strategy for a struggling school district.

Inside the storage systems are rows of lithium-ion batteries packed into individual containers, covering the footprint of roughly 40 football fields. They act as power grid shock absorbers, storing extra power during low demand and releasing it at peak times. Industry data shows this technology saved consumers in Texas $750 million in emergency power costs.

"This is a 600 megawatt project maybe supplying as much as 500,000 homes of electricity during, say, a winter storm event. So it's a resource to keep the local lights on for the community," an Eolian representative said.

While it may keep the lights on, Prairie Grove District 46 is running on empty, and the people living here are processing the harsh reality that they might have to pay up.

In 2021 and 2022, around the time Monarch Grid was introduced, the district spent $24 million it didn’t have on facility upgrades, using a financing option that doesn’t require a public vote. It’s legal, but it left taxpayers on the hook without ever getting a say. To cover the cost, the district is taking out almost $2 million a year from its operating funds, plus another half a million dollars in revenue which it says the board failed to collect in 2024. To stay afloat under its growing deficit, the district has already cut nearly a million dollars in spending for this year.

Internal emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show former administrators discussed similar debt plans just one month after the Fryes agreed to sell.

In a statement, former Superintendent John Bute shifted responsibility to the board, saying legally, only school boards are authorized to take on debt, not the superintendent, and that none of the board’s actions were done out of the public view.

Former CFO Kevin Werner defended the timing of his resignation, saying he left when the district had good financial standing. Both administrators have now moved on to other districts in the state, but the community is still here, and say their trust is broken.

"This has been financed with our utility process to basically shore up an industry that could not do it on its own. And I believe that we've got financing to do these projects," said Greeno.

Tensions rising in the community

The same frustrations have been echoed by neighbors in public, at county and school board meetings, through protest signs planted outside of homes, and in local Facebook groups, where neighbors post regular updates.

So, why here?

The ComEd substation, located in the Fryes’ backyard, provides direct access to the regional power grid. That proximity is why developers like Eolian have been pitching their projects to them for years.

According to Eolian, "If we site it in far-flung areas away from these substations, then it implies we have to build a large transmission line that has environmental impact and has cost."

Still, neighbors aren’t sold.

"I can't have a lithium battery in my suitcase on an airplane, but I can put one next to my elementary school," said Greeno. "I think anybody looking at this would be concerned with fire risk."

A 2021 report out of Marseilles shows putting out a single burning container holding 750 lithium-ion batteries required over 20,000 gallons of water. Just a month before that, in Morris, a fire at a facility storing 200,000 pounds of batteries forced thousands of people to evacuate.

Eolian argues Monarch Grid uses upgraded technology that is "safer than the phone battery in your pocket."

"One layer is monitoring, all the way down at the cell level. We have one-second registers of both the temperature and the voltage... all go through UL 9540 and 9540A testing for standards for fire protection," an Eolian spokesperson explained, adding that emergency plans must be approved by local fire departments.

When we reached out to the Nunda Fire Protection District in June, we were told no permit had been issued and no formal proposal had been provided. We reached out for an update, but didn’t hear back.

A fire expert with the National Fire Protection Association says the protective casings can make things more complicated.

"In general, energy storage systems want to protect those batteries from physical damage... encased in plastic or metal. While that protects them physically from impact, it also can help prevent water from getting directly to those batteries, cooling those batteries directly. So sometimes firefighters have to cool the outside perimeter... That doesn't necessarily get to those deep-seated fires," said Brian O’Connor.

Eolian says in the case of a particular container on fire, the chemical signature tends to be similar to a house fire in terms of what's consumed and what's in the air.

"The battery is actually going through what would be called the thermal runaway... effectively they're just discharging themselves. So it's safer both for the community and for the cleanup... to let the battery finish discharging."

The proposed site also sits across from the Silver Creek Conservation Area.

According to Eolian, all six of its environmental studies showed no impacts to the water, ecological, and cultural resources located on site. When asked if they could guarantee zero impact on the roughly 22 endangered and threatened species living nearby from any sort of emergency event, Eolian maintained that stormwater designs are meant to contain all runoff from the site so that nothing leaches into surrounding areas.

Senate Bill 25 – Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act

Under the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, the state is holding competitive procurement rounds to back new energy projects. Eolian sat out on the first round, waiting on regional grid operators to finalize schedules, which could happen early next year. Meanwhile, just last month, McHenry County adopted strict new rules for clean energy developers, which Eolian says it will follow.

The payoff

If approved, Monarch Grid could generate up to $5 million in annual tax revenue, with a third of it going directly to District 46, enough to take the weight off of taxpayers.

While critics say they were backed into a corner, Monarch Grid could still be a financial lifeline for District 46.

"My understanding is there's going to be a pretty decent tax revenue base for the community, for the village and the school district," said Steve.

But for a community clashing over safety and local controls, the anxiety remains.

"We have no choice. It’s being done with our money. It's insane."