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Data centers use substantial electricity, but there is no comprehensive public, facility-by-facility total for their water use. The best available figures are estimates and forecasts for electricity, while water disclosures often lack the site-level details needed to judge effects on a particular community. “Hiding” is best understood here as a disclosure gap, not proof that every operator is deliberately concealing its use.
How much electricity do data centers use?
The figures below come from different geographic scopes and methods, so they are not interchangeable. U.S. historical figures are modeled estimates; the 2028 and 2030 figures are projections, not observed consumption.
| Scope and year | Electricity use | What the figure represents |
|---|---|---|
| United States, 2014 | 58 TWh | Historical estimate in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) report, summarized by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). |
| United States, 2023 | 176 TWh; about 4.4% of U.S. electricity | Historical estimate from the LBNL report, summarized by DOE in 2024. |
| United States, 2028 | 325–580 TWh; about 6.7–12% of U.S. electricity | DOE’s 2024 summary of LBNL projections. This is a range of scenarios, not a measured result. |
| Global, 2024 | 415 TWh; around 1.5% of global electricity | International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate published in 2025. |
| Global, 2030 | Around 945 TWh | IEA’s 2025 base-case projection, not a prediction that every scenario will reach this level. |
LBNL’s 2024 U.S. Data Center Energy Usage Report estimates historical consumption back to 2014 using earlier studies and historical shipment data, then models scenarios through 2028. Its figures are not an audited public ledger of individual facilities’ meter readings. IEA’s global estimate uses a separate scope and method; it should not be treated as a direct verification of the U.S. estimate.
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IEA’s 2025 report attributes 45% of global data-center electricity use in 2024 to the United States, 25% to China and 15% to Europe. These regional shares illustrate how a global average can conceal concentration. A large, clustered load can affect a particular grid even when data centers account for a smaller fraction of electricity worldwide.
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How much water do data centers use?
No comprehensive, current, facility-by-facility total is established in the cited reporting. Water use varies with facility size, cooling design, climate and operations, and public disclosures do not consistently show the details needed to compare sites or understand local effects.
On-site water is not the same as power-sector water
A data center can use water directly at the site, including for cooling. Electricity generation can also require water, creating an indirect water footprint. Those are different quantities: a site’s water-input figure does not automatically include water used to generate its electricity. Do not add or compare the two unless the source defines the boundary and accounting method.
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Water terms also matter. “Input” or “withdrawal” describes water brought into a system under the source’s stated boundary; “consumption” generally refers to water not returned to the same source in the same condition. They are not synonyms. The European Union’s reporting framework, for example, defines total water input at the data-center boundary for data-center functions and identifies potable-water input separately.
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DOE describes evaporative cooling towers as a common arrangement: heat is rejected as water evaporates. The water performance of a system depends on the heat load and how efficiently heat is removed. A facility’s cooling method and operating conditions therefore matter alongside its annual total; a single industry-wide water number would conceal important differences.
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Why don’t data centers disclose their water use clearly?
Berkeley Law’s 2026 California-focused report finds that operators may publish sustainability goals and totals, but very few report water-source details or effects on other users and ecosystems in ways relevant to a local community. That finding concerns the quality and local usefulness of disclosure; it does not establish that every company reports nothing.
Water may come from a municipal potable-water provider, direct surface-water diversion, groundwater pumping or alternatives such as recycled municipal wastewater. The source and local setting affect what a reported volume means. Berkeley Law also notes that discharges can contain concentrated minerals, chemical additives and pollutants, so water input alone cannot describe the full local impact.
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The report reproduces Equinix’s company-reported worldwide figures for 2024: 94% of its facility water came from municipal sources and 6% directly from groundwater; 37% was described as nonpotable, such as recycled water. These are global company figures, not a California site breakdown or an industry-wide estimate.
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European Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/1364 requires covered data-center operators to report specified information and indicators to a European database. The reporting framework includes energy, installed IT power, water, PUE, WUE and renewable-energy information. It also provides for specified information to be made public in aggregate at Member State and EU levels. That aggregate transparency is not the same as a complete public directory of each facility’s consumption.
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What do PUE and WUE tell you—and what do they leave out?
DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program defines power usage effectiveness (PUE) as total annual facility energy divided by annual IT-equipment energy. Water usage effectiveness (WUE) is annual site water use in liters divided by IT-equipment annual energy in kilowatt-hours.
- PUE indicates how much facility energy is used relative to IT-equipment energy.
- WUE indicates site water use relative to IT-equipment energy.
- Neither ratio gives the absolute burden by itself. A ratio does not tell you a site’s total annual water use or electricity use, where its water comes from, how much is potable, or whether the local watershed is under stress.
To assess community impact, pair ratios with absolute totals, reporting period, facility location, water source and local conditions. A favorable efficiency ratio is not proof that a large facility has a small local footprint.
How can you judge whether a data-center claim is useful?
When comparing facilities, corporate reports or headline estimates, check whether the figures share the same boundary and basis. A practical comparison should identify:
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- Amount and timing: annual electricity and water totals, the reporting year, and peak power demand or peak water draw when available.
- Evidence type: a meter reading, modeled estimate, company-reported figure or forecast. Keep historical estimates separate from scenario projections.
- Location and source: the site or watershed, water utility, and whether the supply is potable, recycled, groundwater or surface water.
- Design and context: facility scale, cooling approach, PUE, WUE and local water stress.
- Disclosure scope: whether the number covers one facility, a whole company or a national or regional aggregate—and what the public can actually inspect.
A national electricity estimate can establish the scale of a sector without revealing the load or water impact in a specific town. A company-wide water percentage can describe that company’s overall sourcing without showing which facility uses which source. The missing local detail is why the word “hiding” captures a real transparency concern, but should not be read as evidence of deliberate concealment by every operator.
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