Normal's New Battery Storage Rules: The Half-Acre Line That Decides Everything

If a battery storage developer approaches you about ground in the Town of Normal, the first question is not what they are paying. It is how big the project is.

On June 15, 2026, the Normal Town Council adopted Ordinance No. 6068, creating a new Division 15.15.3 of the Zoning Code called the Battery Energy Code. It is the first BESS-specific framework in the Twin Cities, and it turns on a single number: half an acre. Everything about how your project gets approved, how far it has to sit from your neighbor's house, and how much leverage you have in the lease follows from which side of that line the project falls.

What Normal actually adopted

The vote was 4 ayes (Smith, Preston, Roberge, Koos), no nays, with Councilmember Byars abstaining. The ordinance sets out where battery storage is allowed as of right, where it needs a special use permit, and — importantly — that anything not on either list is prohibited outright.

Here is the whole use framework:

Why the half-acre line is the whole ballgame

A permitted use is approved administratively. A special use goes to a public hearing, with notice to neighbors, a recommendation, and the chance for the Town to attach conditions.

That difference cuts both ways, and which side you are on depends on who you are:

• If you are the landowner leasing the ground, a project under half an acre in M-1 or M-2 can proceed without a hearing. Nobody will formally ask your neighbors what they think. That is faster, but it also means the Town is not going to negotiate protections into a permit for you — whatever you want, you put in the lease.
• If you are the neighbor, the half-acre threshold is the difference between a hearing and a building permit. A sub-half-acre installation next door in M-1 arrives without a public process.
• If you are the developer's counterparty, expect projects to be engineered to land just under the line where the economics allow. "Site area" is the operative term, and it is worth pinning down in the lease exactly what acreage the tenant may occupy and whether they may later expand across the threshold.

The Town's existing code adds a further trigger that survives this ordinance: a site plan is required in M-1 when the project is within 500 feet of any residential district, and in M-2 when it is within 500 feet of any residential district or when more than 20 acres are developed.

The setbacks, side by side

Both tiers share the same yard setbacks, measured from the nearest battery storage structure. What changes is the distance from your neighbor's house and how tall the equipment can be.

Note the phrase nonparticipating property. If you sign a lease or an easement, you become participating — and the 150-foot and 400-foot protections no longer run in your favor. That is a trade worth pricing.

What applies to every project, large or small

Three requirements deserve attention because they are easy to overlook at the letter-of-intent stage.

Noise is measured against ambient, not a fixed decibel cap

This is the most unusual provision in the ordinance. If an adjacent parcel contains a residential use, the noise from the system may not exceed the lowest ambient sound level existing between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. along any adjacent residential property line. If no adjacent parcel is residential, the standard is that same lowest ambient level on the parcel, plus five dB(A).

There is no number in the code. The standard is whatever the quietest part of the night happens to be at that location — which means it can only be applied against a baseline measurement. Anyone on either side of one of these projects should want a pre-construction ambient sound study in the record, because without one there is nothing to enforce against later.

Screening, wiring and lighting

Outdoor systems must be screened from public rights-of-way, creeks and public parks with dense evergreen vegetation that will reach at least 15 feet at maturity, and a vegetation-free space must be maintained around each module to limit proximity to flammable materials. Wiring must be underground, inside a building, or in a raceway that complements the site — except at the point of interconnection. Lighting is limited to the minimum required for safety, shielded and downcast.

A six-month idleness trigger

If the Zoning Code Administrator determines an outdoor system is not maintained, not in good working order, or has not performed its intended purpose for six consecutive months, the property owner — not the tenant — gets a 90-day written notice to remedy or remove it. Read that again if you are the landowner. The notice comes to you.

The three provisions that should be in your lease, not just the Town's file

Normal has done landowners a favor by requiring real financial assurance. But the Town's protections run to the Town. Yours have to run to you.

1. Decommissioning security, posted before installation

A permit application for a large outdoor system must include a decommissioning plan and a cost estimate prepared by a professional engineer or contractor with expertise in removing battery systems. The estimate must state the cost before considering any projected salvage value — a genuinely good drafting choice, because salvage assumptions are how removal obligations get underfunded.

The owner must give the Town a surety bond, letter of credit, or cash bond in that amount prior to any installation. If the system sits out of service for 12 months it is deemed nonoperational and a public nuisance, and removal must be complete within six months: the system and above-ground improvements, foundations, pads and underground wire down to four feet below grade, and hazardous material disposed of under federal and state law. If the owner fails, the Town may enter and do it.

What to add in your lease: your own removal deadline and your own security, naming you, sized independently. The Town's bond protects the Town's interest in abatement. It does not restore your field to row-crop condition on your timeline, and it does not pay you for lost cropping years.

2. Liability insurance

The owner must maintain general liability coverage of at least $1 million per occurrence and $5 million aggregate, on an occurrence basis, with carriers rated A-VII or better, naming the Town and its officers and employees as additional insureds on a primary and non-contributory basis, with 30 days' notice before any change, cancellation or non-renewal (10 days for nonpayment).

What to add in your lease: the identical package, naming you as an additional insured on the same primary and non-contributory basis, with the same notice rights and certificates delivered to you annually. There is no reason your position should be weaker than the Town's, and the developer is already buying the policy.

3. The definition of "site area"

Since half an acre decides whether there is a public hearing, the lease should define the demised area precisely, cap it, and require your written consent before any expansion, re-permitting, or change from permitted to special use. Otherwise a project you agreed to as a small installation can grow into one that needs a hearing you never wanted to be part of.

How this fits the rest of Illinois

Town staff reported that Normal's rules are similar to Bloomington's, with the difference being where BESS is allowed: Bloomington permits it in manufacturing districts and in "public interest" districts akin to Normal's S-2 Public Lands & Institutions district. Normal did not extend BESS into S-2. Staff also reported that across central Illinois there were no BESS zoning standards at all in Champaign, Urbana, Decatur or Peoria.

And outside municipal limits, a different regime governs: as of June 1, 2026, BESS in the unincorporated parts of the county falls under the state's Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, which standardized county siting. We wrote about what that Act did to the market in Illinois' new battery storage law.

So the practical map for a central Illinois landowner now looks like this: inside Normal, Division 15.15.3 and the half-acre line. Inside Bloomington, a similar framework with a wider district list. In the unincorporated county, the state Act. In several nearby cities, nothing specific yet — which means general zoning and whatever you negotiate.

If you have been approached

Battery storage leases are still being papered on solar-era forms that do not account for fire suppression, ambient noise standards, augmentation of degraded cells, or the fact that a nonoperational system becomes the landowner's notice problem. The ordinance is a floor. The lease is where you actually get paid and protected.

Start with what a BESS actually is, then what to look for before you sign, and see our wind, solar and battery lease practice. If the ground is in a county rather than a municipality, land use and zoning is the other half of the question.