This post was originally published on Data Center Knowledge
Most data centers consume a significant amount of water, primarily within their cooling systems. The extent to which data center water consumption negatively impacts communities and the environment, however, can vary significantly based on one key factor: Whether water is sourced from municipal supplies.
In general, data centers place a significantly greater burden on homes and businesses when they compete with them for water supplied through municipal water systems, as opposed to obtaining water from alternative, private sources.
Finding alternatives to municipal water is one way to help reconcile data centers’ thirst with the imperative of being a good neighbor. Fortunately, a variety of solutions are available on this front.
How Much Municipal Water Do Data Centers Use?
In most cases, the easiest way to acquire the water data centers need for cooling is through municipal water systems. Doing so eliminates the need for data center operators to build and maintain their own water collection and filtration infrastructure. Thus, it’s unsurprising that municipal water accounts for about 95% of all data center water use.
From the perspective of communities that also rely on municipal water, this isn’t always a good thing. Consider, for instance, that a single data center may consume as much water as
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