Calculator 04 · Water

How much water will it drink?

Set the IT load, cooling approach and load factor. See gallons a day, acre-feet a year and how much of the local system it would take.

Inputs

Critical IT loadMW

WUEL/kWh

Liters of site water consumed per kWh of IT energy.

Load factor%

Local water system capacityMGD

Million gallons a day the utility can supply. Ask the utility.

Average day

Water consumed per day

912,979gal

3,043 families' daily home use

Share of system capacity

9.1%

Room to spare on an average day

A year

Million gallons

333

Acre-feet

1,023

In Olympic pools

505

Each tile = 10 pools of 660,000 gal

For early planning only. Results follow from the inputs and the stated assumptions; they are not engineering, financial or legal advice.

How the math works

Water = IT energy × WUE

Water usage effectiveness is liters of site water consumed per kWh of IT energy. Annual IT energy is the IT load across 8,760 hours at the load factor; multiply by WUE for liters, then convert to gallons (3.785 liters each) and acre-feet (325,851 gallons each).

Cooling approach drives the answer

Evaporative cooling consumes the most water, hybrid systems switch to water only in hot weather, and dry or closed-loop systems consume little or none on site. The presets are example values along that range; use the design WUE if you have it.

Average day versus the system

The share of system capacity compares an average day's use with the capacity you enter. Hot-weather peaks run above the average, and what the utility can commit is often less than its nameplate capacity, so ask it directly.

Questions

How much water does a data center use?

It depends mostly on the cooling design. At a WUE of 1.8 L/kWh, a 100 MW IT load running at an 80% load factor consumes roughly 900,000 gallons on an average day. With waterless cooling, on-site consumption can be near zero, though the power plants supplying it still use water.

What is WUE?

Water usage effectiveness: annual site water consumption in liters divided by IT equipment energy in kWh. Lower is better.

Does this include water used to make the electricity?

No. It counts water consumed at the site for cooling. Water used at power plants is a separate, indirect figure.

Why compare with the local system?

Because water service is often the constraint. A load that takes a large share of a small system's capacity needs early talks with the utility and may need new supply or reclaimed water.