Dive Brief:
- Data centers in seven key states use about 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater indirectly because of the electricity they consume, according to a new report from sustainability nonprofit Ceres. That makes electricity the biggest contributor to data centers’ overall water use.
- Most of the electricity (66%) generated in the states that host around half of the country’s data centers — Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio and Arizona — uses water from areas facing medium-high or extremely high water stress, per the report. Ceres found that data center growth could increase water stress by as much as 32% in the city of Phoenix alone.
- Data centers’ indirect water use could increase substantially by 2030, by between 4.1 and 7.6 trillion gallons. Data center capacity is also expected to nearly double, with electricity consumption projected to reach 9% to 17% of total demand in the United States, according to the Aug. 24 report.
Dive Insight:
As artificial intelligence use and the number of data centers needed to support that grows, water consumed for power generation could account for 72% of data centers’ total water consumption by the end of the decade, according to a recent analysis from market insights and advisory firm Bluefield Research.
Earlier this year, Microsoft claimed it replenished more water than its data centers used and Google touted plans to reduce direct data center water consumption. However, according to Ceres’ findings, data centers’ greatest water impact lies in the water used to generate the electricity they depend on.
The new report calculated the water required to generate the electricity used by nearly 50% of the country’s data centers, located across seven states. For example, because of their electricity consumption, Virginia data centers used 21 times the amount of water that Washington, D.C. uses each year. Meanwhile, California data centers used 10 times as much water as the city of Los Angeles uses annually, according to the report.
“Better planning starts with understanding the full scope of data center water dependency and impacts, including the water needed to make electricity to power them,” Kirsten James, senior program director of water at Ceres and one of the report’s co-authors, said in a press release last week.
Thermal generation (such as gas, coal and nuclear) and hydropower both require vast amounts of freshwater to generate power, while wind and solar require little to no water, per the report. In the states studied, 78% of the electricity was produced by water-dependent power plants, while just 22% was generated by water-efficient renewables. California withdrew the most water for energy generation because of its dependence on hydroelectric power, which relies on water from reservoirs that can lose significant volumes to evaporation, per the report.
Ceres recommends that companies include water use embedded in purchased electricity, not just direct water consumption, in their risk assessments.
Some companies, such as CyrusOne and Meta, are already beginning to do so, the nonprofit said. On the other hand, others are procuring energy in ways that reduce such water use, like Oracle, who decided to replace planned gas turbines with fuel cells that don’t require cooling towers. The report noted that policymakers should require standardized reporting on both direct and embedded water use, and should incentivize renewable energy that uses less water.
