Data Centres Use Water

In 2014 data centers were responsible for 2 percent of all electricity consumed in the us according to the recent government study.

Data centres use water.

Google declined to say how much water the company s data centers use but said that the company redesigns its cooling technology on average about every 12 to 18 months. The facility which was built in 2008 and described in a 2010 dck article is google s first water treatment plant in the united states. Together data centre specialist professor ian bitterlin and water pump manufacturer wilo uk have identified how chilled water pumps could be key to improving energy and water usage. Add to that worldwide water scarcity and rising investor concern about companies data center water use and the end result is a very clear and immediate need for data centers to use less water.

In these cases a data center operator pumps the source water through a heat exchanger. By far the largest opportunity for direct water savings in the data center. The covid 19 pandemic has added 20 growth to data centres in the past. Water use associated with the data center is a complex topic at many levels.

Generation of electricity however is a major water consumer and data centers use a lot of electricity. The project to use grey water in atlanta is part of google s broader program to reduce the impact of its data centers on the environment and local community. Building data centers in locations with cooler climates or close to sources of cold water could help to significantly increase energy efficiency as well as. Data centers can do that first and most obviously by using less water.

Some data centers collect rainwater and use it as a secondary or supplemental water supply. Data centers will most likely come to adopt a mixture of traditional and alternative cooling methods while the location of data centers may come to be a major issue in the coming years. The main issue is that water use or changes to a site s water use strategy generally affects other site use parameters and also can affect the supply chain for different. With wue the issue of a source based versus site based metric must be considered.

With the internet and data centres being the biggest growth industry in the uk electrical demand is continuing to drive climate change. In 2019 alone google requested or was granted more than 2 3 billion gallons of water for data centers in three different states according to public records posted online and legal filings.