U.S. Data Centers Used 66 Billion Liters of Water in 2023

U.S. data centers consumed about 66 billion liters, or 17.4 billion gallons, of water directly in 2023, while the electricity used by those facilities was linked to nearly 800 billion liters of water consumption at power-generation facilities. The facilities consumed about 176 terawatt-hours of electricity, representing 4.4% of U.S. electricity use. The average indirect water-consumption intensity was 4.52 liters per kilowatt-hour. Those figures measure two different parts of the data-center footprint. Site water-use effectiveness, or WUE, measures water consumed at a facility for each kilowatt-hour of information-technology load.

Source: TokenPost