A leading lady in the industry for whom I have great respect once taught me that when it comes to siting a data center: Power Rules and Water Drools. If the power can’t be figured out, the plans for development are scrubbed and the site doesn’t happen. And the water? We’ll figure out the water. “Never let water hold up the show,” she would say. “There is always a strategy for water.” She wasn’t wrong.
And you know what? There’s more. Power might be the biggest upfront cost concern, but over time—over the service life of the Mission Critical Facility—water makes a splash.
Water and power are often managed by different teams, but the systems are inseparable. Fouled heat exchangers and scaled condenser surfaces force chillers, pumps, and fans to work harder. Excessive filtration pressure drop can also raise pumping energy when systems are poorly designed. These are the basic things that just about anyone could intuit. But there’s more: the treatment system itself can have profound impact on total lifetime cost of ownership. And how do you make sure you have the right treatment train? You hire the right consultant and you have them collaborate with the right development team on the client side of the house. It takes a village, for sure, but the end result is lower power costs.
The right treatment sequence for the specific needs of any given particular site—and the needs are often similar, but never exactly the same. The right design, the right consultant, the right builder, and the right maintenance can easily save a million or so dollars a year in electricity costs. Over a 50-year service period? That’s some real savings, especially when we factor in net present value, inflation, and the time value of money.
References:
Alkrush, A. A., Salem, M. S., Abdelrehim, O., and Hegazi, A. A. (2024). Data centers cooling: a critical review of techniques, challenges, and energy saving solutions. International Journal of Refrigeration, 160, 246-262. Data centers cooling: A critical review of techniques, challenges, and energy saving solutions - ScienceDirect
Lei, N., Lu, J., Shehabi, A., & Masanet, E. (2025). The water use of data center workloads: A review and assessment of key determinants. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 219, 108310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2025.108310
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2023). Cooling tower water treatment and management guidance. EPA. ws-commercial-watersense-at-work_Section_6.3_Cooling_Towers.pdf
Chang, Q., Huang, Y., Liu, K., Xu, X., Zhao, Y., and Pan, S. (2024). Optimization control strategies and evaluation metrics of cooling systems in data centers: a review. Sustainability, 16(16), 7222. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16167222