Event Recap
RECAP | ROUNDTABLE | Data Center Water Management
It has been reported that almost 50% of the global population will be living in areas of high-water stress by 2030. Water management has become a key concern in the data center industry and a vital part of a data center sustainability plan. Water availability is an essential element to the operations of many data centers.
Rhonda Ascierto, Research Vice President for Uptime Institute, and Daniel Bizo, Research Director for Uptime Institute joined the roundtable discussion where attendees engaged and interacted on what they are implementing regarding water management. Some of the key items discussed:
• Do you have a water management plan in place? If you do not, why?
• What constitutes an effective water management strategy and plan?
• What are some water practices you are focusing on to improve water usage?
The session was attended by a variety of member companies, both enterprise and colocation. The attendees expressed an interest in ways to reduce and eliminate water usage, as well as different and future technologies that would help in this effort. Some attendees indicated they are hesitant to not utilize water because it is tried and true and just works. Others are struggling with how to efficiently track and manage their water usage.
Rhonda started the discussion by mentioning Uptime Institute’s most recent survey data. Only 51% indicated they measure water usage for corporate sustainability purposes. For those who do track water usage, 42% track it at the site level, only 6% track it at a regional level, with 10% tracking it at the portfolio/fleet level. When we also asked why your organization doesn’t track water use, 63% indicated it is because there is no business justification for collecting water usage date. The overall answer on tracking is there needs to be a greater commitment to tracking water usage, and when it is tracked it needs to be tracked more effectively.
Daniel mentioned how water is presently not treated strategically like carbon and other emissions. Operators tend to treat water reactively. Some examples of being reactive would be when water locally is targeted, or to obtain building permits, as well as when water impacts design and some operations. This reactiveness is directional changing, but we are in the early days.
Are you tracking water usage?
Most attendees indicated they are tracking and trending water usage, but only in a minimal fashion, like collecting and logging water bills, to see where water is used, and for leak detection. Some indicated they are more diligently tracking wastewater (sewage) because their utility provides an evaporative credit. It was agreed that tracking wastewater is a great place to start because you can start a justification by realizing a return on investment. However, one attendee indicated they are getting pushback from their utility on realizing evaporative credits.
What technologies are you using in water restricted areas?
Typical cooling technologies being used are air cooled chillers and DX cooling systems. Some are using liquid/immersion cooling to help reduce existing chiller plant hours and water usage. Where the water utility has it available, data centers are using reclaimed water instead of standard water. Reclaimed water is treated wastewater suitable for cooling tower use.
One attendee indicated their leadership has made a forward-looking decision to be a sustainable company. They only use dry coolers for all their data centers and will only provide a chiller plant in a data center if a tenant insists.
It was discussed how the technology that can be utilized is highly dependent on your location and region. For example, Northern Virginia (data center alley) is pretty much out of water that can be allocated for data centers. Another example is Northern California is not approving reclaimed water projects right now because they have hit their allocation. Therefore, your strategy and solutions need to be localized based on conditions.
What constitutes and effective water management strategy?
For a strategy, start with something to determine risk, and then analyze and create a strategy and plan. Attendees discussed some basic items to developing and implementing a water management strategy.
- Start with the location and region and identify the risks, from water shed to water quality to business environment. There are several tools available to help identify the risk. NALCO Risk Monetizer (https://about.smartwaternavigator.com/) and World Resources Institute Tool (www.wri.org) are a couple.
- Incorporate water management in your data center design choosing technologies that meet your business needs based on location and region.
- From an operations perspective, measure, track, trend, and analyze all water usage at the site, regional, and portfolio level. You can’t make change if you don’t measure. Metrics suggested were the following:
o Water and wastewater usage, overall and per customer if applicable
o Water usage effectiveness (WUE)
o WUE Real, which equals IT water divided by energy usage
o Water Risk Premium, which is additional cost driven water in the location/region
o Revenue at Risk, which is potential loss of revenue based on the risk profile.
- Justify and implement projects where appropriate to reduce water usage and create savings. Good places to start are working with the water utility in potentially using reclaimed water and measuring wastewater for evaporative credits. More advanced and costly projects would be implementing mechanical technology changes.
Next, an attendee brought up how they are seeing a lot of hyperscalers getting hit by third party suits and issues for using too much water. The question is where is this headed? Rhonda chimed in that hyperscalers and cloud provides typically do not share their data, and the suspicion is they are not formally tracking consistently. Also, the power profile is the emphasis for them because of carbon tracking. Water does not appear to be high in priority for them at the moment. Daniel stated optimizing water means they edge up on power usage, and perhaps utility water usage in the location as well. The attendee concurred and indicated he is being told they have the data but are not willing to share it.
In closing, it was reiterated that pressure on water usage is coming. Data center water management is something you need to start considering if you are not already, and something you need to address. Corporate sustainability is a primary focus and water management will play a key part in meeting your overall sustainability objectives. Creating and implementing a data center water management strategy and plan will need backing and buy-in, but establishing a strategy and plan is necessary to justify and address data center water usage as it relates to overall sustainability.
Rhonda Ascierto, Research Vice President for Uptime Institute, and Daniel Bizo, Research Director for Uptime Institute joined the roundtable discussion where attendees engaged and interacted on what they are implementing regarding water management. Some of the key items discussed:
• Do you have a water management plan in place? If you do not, why?
• What constitutes an effective water management strategy and plan?
• What are some water practices you are focusing on to improve water usage?
The session was attended by a variety of member companies, both enterprise and colocation. The attendees expressed an interest in ways to reduce and eliminate water usage, as well as different and future technologies that would help in this effort. Some attendees indicated they are hesitant to not utilize water because it is tried and true and just works. Others are struggling with how to efficiently track and manage their water usage.
Rhonda started the discussion by mentioning Uptime Institute’s most recent survey data. Only 51% indicated they measure water usage for corporate sustainability purposes. For those who do track water usage, 42% track it at the site level, only 6% track it at a regional level, with 10% tracking it at the portfolio/fleet level. When we also asked why your organization doesn’t track water use, 63% indicated it is because there is no business justification for collecting water usage date. The overall answer on tracking is there needs to be a greater commitment to tracking water usage, and when it is tracked it needs to be tracked more effectively.
Daniel mentioned how water is presently not treated strategically like carbon and other emissions. Operators tend to treat water reactively. Some examples of being reactive would be when water locally is targeted, or to obtain building permits, as well as when water impacts design and some operations. This reactiveness is directional changing, but we are in the early days.
Are you tracking water usage?
Most attendees indicated they are tracking and trending water usage, but only in a minimal fashion, like collecting and logging water bills, to see where water is used, and for leak detection. Some indicated they are more diligently tracking wastewater (sewage) because their utility provides an evaporative credit. It was agreed that tracking wastewater is a great place to start because you can start a justification by realizing a return on investment. However, one attendee indicated they are getting pushback from their utility on realizing evaporative credits.
What technologies are you using in water restricted areas?
Typical cooling technologies being used are air cooled chillers and DX cooling systems. Some are using liquid/immersion cooling to help reduce existing chiller plant hours and water usage. Where the water utility has it available, data centers are using reclaimed water instead of standard water. Reclaimed water is treated wastewater suitable for cooling tower use.
One attendee indicated their leadership has made a forward-looking decision to be a sustainable company. They only use dry coolers for all their data centers and will only provide a chiller plant in a data center if a tenant insists.
It was discussed how the technology that can be utilized is highly dependent on your location and region. For example, Northern Virginia (data center alley) is pretty much out of water that can be allocated for data centers. Another example is Northern California is not approving reclaimed water projects right now because they have hit their allocation. Therefore, your strategy and solutions need to be localized based on conditions.
What constitutes and effective water management strategy?
For a strategy, start with something to determine risk, and then analyze and create a strategy and plan. Attendees discussed some basic items to developing and implementing a water management strategy.
- Start with the location and region and identify the risks, from water shed to water quality to business environment. There are several tools available to help identify the risk. NALCO Risk Monetizer (https://about.smartwaternavigator.com/) and World Resources Institute Tool (www.wri.org) are a couple.
- Incorporate water management in your data center design choosing technologies that meet your business needs based on location and region.
- From an operations perspective, measure, track, trend, and analyze all water usage at the site, regional, and portfolio level. You can’t make change if you don’t measure. Metrics suggested were the following:
o Water and wastewater usage, overall and per customer if applicable
o Water usage effectiveness (WUE)
o WUE Real, which equals IT water divided by energy usage
o Water Risk Premium, which is additional cost driven water in the location/region
o Revenue at Risk, which is potential loss of revenue based on the risk profile.
- Justify and implement projects where appropriate to reduce water usage and create savings. Good places to start are working with the water utility in potentially using reclaimed water and measuring wastewater for evaporative credits. More advanced and costly projects would be implementing mechanical technology changes.
Next, an attendee brought up how they are seeing a lot of hyperscalers getting hit by third party suits and issues for using too much water. The question is where is this headed? Rhonda chimed in that hyperscalers and cloud provides typically do not share their data, and the suspicion is they are not formally tracking consistently. Also, the power profile is the emphasis for them because of carbon tracking. Water does not appear to be high in priority for them at the moment. Daniel stated optimizing water means they edge up on power usage, and perhaps utility water usage in the location as well. The attendee concurred and indicated he is being told they have the data but are not willing to share it.
In closing, it was reiterated that pressure on water usage is coming. Data center water management is something you need to start considering if you are not already, and something you need to address. Corporate sustainability is a primary focus and water management will play a key part in meeting your overall sustainability objectives. Creating and implementing a data center water management strategy and plan will need backing and buy-in, but establishing a strategy and plan is necessary to justify and address data center water usage as it relates to overall sustainability.
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