From David Underwood, President, Village of Prairie Grove president@prairiegrove.org:
I wanted to share with you the letter David Underwood wrote to our Facebook group opposing the BESS. I’ll include a link but I’ve just copied and pasted it from Facebook as well. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1HjZTKtxZw/
I’m not sure if you’re aware but there’s an online informational meeting being hosted by the village of Prairie Grove and Eolian on Wednesday March 12.
[Correction: the webinar is Eolian’s event.]
Here is the link to the village info page: https://prairiegrove.org/2026/03/07/monarch-grid-bess-project-update-march-2026/
Link to the meeting registration: https://events.zoom.us/ev/AligUVmqScADgbgqjyVEdDP4NqPjHoE7n19N4yokNGyJrBlEgN2f~Ajir8ZHsFUo1vr1lw148Om0DBuIbx7GD3JufB5hYhtKa9uQnFewtimF8PXX6TmEwx4TJauADQVQgUoP8yfeEOfVZfg
Facebook Post March 11 from David Underwood President Village of Prairie Grove:
“Prairie Grove Rural Neighbors Against the Lithium Battery Project / Terri Grode, it has been reported to me that your posts are prompting residents to call Village Hall with concerns. Regarding your question about the email from Eolian to the Village referencing a data center, I already addressed the email you’re referencing here both privately and at your barn meeting. But for the benefit of Village Hall staff who are constantly fielding those calls, and for those who weren’t at your meeting, I will explain it here for the third time, along with additional comments regarding the proposed BESS facility.
The Village of Prairie Grove has received numerous calls from data center brokers over the span of several years. The reason is straightforward: ComEd maintains and publishes a public map of “hosting capacity” showing substations in their region with available electrical capacity. To see it yourself, search “ComEd BESS Hosting Capacity.” On that map is the Silver Lake Substation, located between Prairie Grove and Oakwood Hills. That substation has excess capacity, and the open land surrounding it makes it attractive to both data center and BESS brokers. This is the sole source of the solicitations the Village has received. The Village of Prairie Grove has never actively sought out or “spearheaded” a data center, BESS facility, or any campaign of a similar nature.
At your meeting, I explained that data center brokers have called the Village seeking general information about land west of Valley View Road and south of ComEd’s high voltage lines. That land was annexed years ago, initially for a residential development project that has since stalled. Your claim that the Village annexed that land at the February 2026 meeting is incorrect. What the Village did at that meeting was adopt its updated zoning map, a routine ministerial formality that had not been completed since March 2019.
The Village Administrator and I met with Eolian representatives in November 2025, after learning that the BESS project was slated to move forward. The subject of data centers naturally came up as we discussed the Silver Lake substation. At that time, and still today, no data center developer, broker, or associated entity had approached the Village with any proposal, nor has anyone expressed serious interest to this day.
I understand why Mr. Lines’ reference to “the datacenter developer” in his email might lead someone to conclude that a specific entity is involved. There is not. As I previously explained, he was referring to potential future developers, should any interest materialize. Mr. Lines’ email address is visible at the top of the document you posted. You are welcome to contact him directly, or put the question to Eolian’s representatives at their upcoming webinar, if you would like corroboration of what I am telling you.
For those who have seen claims here that a data center is coming to our area, I would encourage you to consult this publicly available map of current and planned data centers in Illinois: https://cleanview.co/public/data-centers/illinois. You will find no current or planned data center associated with the Silver Lake Substation. Absolute statements like “the data center is going here” are not based on any facts in evidence. They are speculation presented as certainty, and that distinction matters enormously.
I also want to address the claim that District 46’s solar panel project is somehow connected to a data center or the Eolian BESS proposal. It is not. The school district is an entirely independent governmental entity from the Village of Prairie Grove. Its decision to install solar panels is its own, made for its own reasons, and to our knowledge has no connection whatsoever to any data center, BESS facility, or anything else being discussed in this group. Beyond that, a school solar installation of this nature would not come close to generating the electrical load that a data center requires. The suggestion that these two things are related is, to the best of our knowledge, simply false.
Regarding the proposed BESS facility itself, I reiterate that the Village was first contacted by McHenry County in 2024, when the County realized that Eolian’s proposed project spanned both unincorporated land and Village land. You have that email, which makes crystal clear that the Village did not seek out this project. A full year passed after that initial contact without any substantive communication from Eolian, even as it was reaching out to land and homeowners in the area. Both the Village Administrator and I requested information from Eolian during that period and received nothing of substance in return.
Mr. Lines sent an email to the Village Administrator as recently as November 25, 2025, stating that “no one on your side has had all of the information to respond to public inquiries.” You have that email as well. Given that, I am at a loss to understand how you can continue to assert that the Village has been “in talks” and working with Eolian behind closed doors for years.
If you are going to serve responsibly as the administrator of a group approaching 1,000 people, you should release all relevant materials to that group, even when they contradict your narrative.
It boils down to this. The landowner at issue, a private citizen, has decided to sell to Eolian, and that is his right. The majority of the land in question is in unincorporated McHenry County. A portion lies within Prairie Grove. We have been told that the BESS facility will be built on the unincorporated land regardless of what the Village says or does. We cannot stop a development from being built on land outside our jurisdiction. And with Senate Bill 25 now signed into law, it is highly likely that even the County lacks the authority to stop it. That is not within our control. In fact, since I raised this issue at your barn meeting, a lawsuit has already been filed against McHenry County for rejecting solar projects, which illustrates that this legal landscape is not theoretical.
The only potential decision involving Prairie Grove is whether to annex the unincorporated land, which would place the entire proposed project within the Village’s jurisdiction. As I have said numerous times, even that is hypothetical at this point, because the Village has not received an annexation application from Eolian. What residents should understand is that if this project proceeds solely on the unincorporated portion of the land, Eolian need only meet the *minimum* siting standards set by the EPA and the State of Illinois. The question Prairie Grove may ultimately face is whether we can make this project more protective of our community by bringing it within our jurisdiction.
If annexation were to occur, it would give the Village a direct say in setbacks, fire protection, landscaping, emergency egress, and other aspects of the facility, shaped by resident input. It is no secret that the Village would also receive approximately $200,000 per year in property tax revenue, an amount set by the County Assessor, not Prairie Grove, as well as the possibility of a new park, education center, or other community facility funded by the company. I raise these not as reasons to embrace this project, but so that residents understand the full range of considerations the Village must weigh as it fulfills its obligation to this community.
I now want to address certain misinformation that has been circulating about the potential risks of this facility. Let me be clear: legitimate concerns about BESS facilities are real, and I do not dismiss them. These are large-scale energy storage systems, and questions about safety, fire risk, environmental impact, and proximity to residents deserve serious attention. Those are exactly the kinds of concerns that would factor into any decision the Village makes, and they are the kinds of protections the Village could potentially negotiate if it has jurisdiction over the project.
What is not acceptable is stating unverified specifics as guaranteed outcomes. There is an important difference between asking hard questions about the risks of a BESS facility and declaring with certainty that this facility WILL explode, WILL contain hexavalent chromium (an uncorrelated Erin Brockovich reference), and WILL poison our children. The first is responsible advocacy. The second is scaremongering, and it has real consequences. Literature making these kinds of claims was distributed to residents’ mailboxes. At our last Village Board meeting, a resident came forward in tears, frightened by what she had read. This community deserves honest, fact-based advocacy that keeps pressure on the right people and asks the right questions. It does not deserve to be frightened by projecting doomsday scenarios as inevitabilities.
Finally, I want to address the serious personal accusations that have been directed at Village administration, staff, trustees, and now, it seems, our District 46 School Board. This is not ‘Chicago politics,’ and Prairie Grove is not a faceless bureaucracy where decisions are made by people you will never meet or hold accountable. The trustees and staff of this Village and those serving on the school board are your neighbors, friends, and business owners. They coach your kids, they sit next to you at community events, and they are reachable by phone or at any Board meeting. They stepped forward to serve this community with integrity, knowing they would sometimes be asked to make very difficult decisions, oftentimes ones that go against their own interests for the betterment of the whole. No one in Prairie grove created this situation. The BESS project is coming to our area because a private citizen chose to sell his land to a developer, and because the majority of that land sits in adjacent unincorporated McHenry County. Prairie Grove finds itself navigating a situation that was not of our making, with limited authority and real legal constraints. The board and staff of this Village exist for one purpose: to protect and serve its residents. They are not your adversary in this. They are your advocates, and accusing them of deceit, concealment, or criminal conduct is not only wrong and unworthy of this community, it makes it harder for them to do their jobs on your behalf. Beyond being wrong, making unfounded, slanderous accusations against people who live and work among you has real consequences for their reputations, their businesses, and their families. This is a small, close-knit community, and words have weight here. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard than that.
For the Village’s part, what we are doing, which is following proper procedure, waiting until an actual proposal is before us, and carefully weighing our options, is the right and responsible course of action. The Village has one full-time administrator and two administrative staff members who are now overwhelmed with FOIA requests and struggling to keep basic Village operations running. I am not suggesting you surrender your constitutional rights. I am suggesting that the energy of this group would be far better spent working constructively with your local government as it navigates a genuinely difficult situation. I invite anyone in this group to contact me directly or reply here with positive suggestions.
