Data Centres Use Water

Water use associated with the data center is a complex topic at many levels.

Data centres use water.

With the internet and data centres being the biggest growth industry in the uk electrical demand is continuing to drive climate change. In these cases a data center operator pumps the source water through a heat exchanger. 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. 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.

Some data centers collect rainwater and use it as a secondary or supplemental water supply. 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. By far the largest opportunity for direct water savings in the data center. Data centers can do that first and most obviously by using less water.

With wue the issue of a source based versus site based metric must be considered. Generation of electricity however is a major water consumer and data centers use a lot of electricity. 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 facility which was built in 2008 and described in a 2010 dck article is google s first water treatment plant in the united states.

The covid 19 pandemic has added 20 growth to data centres in the past. The company has also. In 2014 data centers were responsible for 2 percent of all electricity consumed in the us according to the recent government study. 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.

Wue water usage effectiveness is a metric developed by the green grid to help data centers measure how much water a facility uses for cooling and other building needs. 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.