Most data centers refusing to say how much water, electricity they use

[dognose]

The vast majority of data centers in Europe keep information about their environmental impact secret, according to a study by Lighthouse Report in collaboration with Trouw and other European media. In the Netherlands, less than a quarter of larger data centers publish data about their electricity and drinking water usage.

The researchers spent a year trying to obtain data on data centers’ environmental impact in Europe, invoking freedom of information laws in various European countries. Their attempts have yielded no results.

The European Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) obliges data centers with an installed capacity of at least 500 kilowatts (kW) to report data including their energy and water consumption. In practice, few do so, despite the directive being in effect for three years.

According to the Dutch Datacenter Association (DDA), there were 186 commercial data centers with a capacity of 500 kW or more in the Netherlands at the end of last year. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), which collects the information for the EU, has data on only 104 of them.

The RVO also lacks crucial data regarding water and energy consumption. Public figures exist on the electricity usage of 44 centers and the water usage of 47 - less than a quarter of the larger Dutch data centers. The RVO told Trouw that it has more data on some centers, but did not provide figures.

Data centers have become increasingly prolific in recent years with the rise of first cloud services and then AI applications. The number of data centers has skyrocketed, and with them the consumption of electricity for operations and drinking water for cooling the thousands of servers involved.

According to the latest figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), data centers used 5.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the Netherlands in 2024. That is 4.6 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption, a near doubling in five years. Grid operator TenneT projects that data centers will consume 10 to 15 percent of the Netherlands’ electricity by 2030. That while a lack of grid capacity has businesses, institutions, and even housing developments on waiting lists.

Data from the RVO revealed this summer that Microsoft’s largest data center in the Netherlands alone accounts for 1 percent of the national electricity consumption. Google, which has two large data centers in the Netherlands, does not disclose this information.

Little is known about data centers’ water usage. In the Netherlands, it is estimated that they account for about 0.1 percent of total consumption. That is a small proportion, but climate change is making conservative water usage increasingly critical with prolonged periods of drought and water shortages.


SOURCE: https://nltimes.nl/2026/09/30/data-centers-refusing-say-much-water-electricity-use

 

[k0bgalan]

All we need now, is to eliminate the endless red tape the Fed has imposed making it virtually impossible to build any new power plant regardless of the type.

 

[3RDLIFE]

How is this not politics and propaganda? AFAF.

 

[djackson7348]

Here is a cut regarding a new site being built in Hamlet, NC taken from the NC Newsline website. I just copied the section about emergency/backup generators the Amazon site will have. These are mind blowing numbers.

"When the Amazon project is finished, it will include 21 buildings, each of them 200,000 square feet. Each will have its own 12,000-gallon bulk storage tank to hold low-sulfur diesel fuel to power 592 emergency generators that could emit hundreds of tons of pollution each year, according to Amazon’s draft air permit."

“We rely on the utility grid to power our data centers and serve our customers,” an Amazon spokesperson told Inside Climate News. “To ensure uninterrupted service for critical customers including hospitals, schools, and emergency services, our data centers include backup generators in case of rare power disruptions.”