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Data centers can use substantial electricity, and some also consume water on site to cool equipment. Their community impacts depend on the facility’s design and operating demands, local water and wastewater systems, and the power grid—not on a national average alone. National estimates indicate fast-growing electricity demand, but they cannot tell you whether a particular project will affect local bills, water availability, or reliability.
How much electricity do data centers use?
Electricity powers servers and other information technology (IT) equipment, as well as supporting systems such as cooling. A facility’s total load depends on the equipment it uses, how intensively that equipment runs, the cooling design, and operational efficiency. Data centers also often need firm power to support continuous operation. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) notes that demand and grid considerations vary by region.
National estimates show the scale of the issue, but projections are scenarios rather than guaranteed outcomes. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) 2025 update, published in 2026, models data centers reaching 11.8% of total U.S. electricity use by 2030 in its central estimate. Its modeled scenario range is 9.5% to 15.3% by 2030.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →| Measure | Figure | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. data-center electricity use in 2023 | 176 TWh | LBNL estimate from its 2024 report, as summarized by DOE. |
| U.S. data-center electricity use in 2028 | 325–580 TWh | Range projected in LBNL’s 2024 report, as summarized by DOE. |
| Share of total U.S. electricity by 2030 | 11.8% | Central modeled estimate in LBNL’s 2025 update, published in 2026. |
| Share of total U.S. electricity by 2030 | 9.5%–15.3% | Modeled scenario range in the same LBNL update. |
The 2023 estimate is a historical figure; the 2028 and 2030 figures are projections from different LBNL reports. They should not be treated as observed outcomes or as forecasts for a particular utility or community.
Where water use comes from
There are two distinct water pathways. Direct, or site, water is used at the facility, often as part of cooling. Indirect water is consumed elsewhere to generate the electricity the facility uses. Indirect water use depends on the electricity-generation technologies and location, so a facility’s site-water figure does not capture its full water footprint.
Cooling towers: evaporation and blowdown
Cooling towers reject heat partly by evaporating water. They also drain some water—called blowdown—to control the dissolved minerals that build up in the recirculating system. DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program describes evaporation as the primary source of cooling-tower water use and blowdown as another water outflow. Cooling design and operating conditions affect both water and energy use.
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Withdrawal is not the same as consumption
A water withdrawal is water taken from a source; some may later be returned. Consumption is water not returned to the immediate system, including water lost through evaporation. A project’s withdrawal and consumption figures answer different questions: the former helps describe demand on a source, while the latter helps show how much water is unavailable for immediate reuse locally.
What WUE tells you—and what it leaves out
Water usage effectiveness (WUE) is a site-based metric: annual site water use divided by annual IT-equipment energy use. It can help compare facility water use in context, but it does not measure the water consumed off site to generate electricity. Comparisons are meaningful only when the reporting boundary and assumptions are clear.
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There is no single reliable amount of water per computing task that applies to all data centers. An LBNL-authored 2025 review found workload-level water-use variation exceeding 10,000-fold in its analysis. The review identifies interacting factors including server efficiency and utilization, cooling-system type, infrastructure efficiency, climate zone, the share of inactive servers, refresh cycles, and the water-consumption characteristics of the electricity grid. That finding describes variation in the review’s workload analysis; it is not a universal range for individual facilities.
How a data center could affect nearby residents
Possible community effects follow several pathways, and each depends on local conditions:
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- Water supply: A facility’s withdrawals and consumption may matter to the source it uses, particularly under drought or other supply constraints. Whether they create pressure depends on the source, the facility’s demand, and local water planning.
- Wastewater treatment: Cooling-tower blowdown may require handling and treatment. Its significance depends on the volume, water quality, discharge arrangements, and available treatment capacity.
- Electricity system: A large, continuous load can become part of utility and grid planning. The local implications depend on generation, transmission capacity, interconnection and any required upgrades, as well as how costs are allocated.
- Household bills and reliability: A project might be relevant to utility costs or reliability planning, but national demand estimates do not establish that it will raise residents’ bills or reduce local reliability. Those outcomes require evidence from project-specific utility filings and grid plans.
USGS identifies water supply, wastewater treatment, and energy use as siting and planning considerations, while noting that data-center energy-use reporting is incomplete. DOE likewise emphasizes regional variation and the need to consider grid integration and reliability. Neither source establishes the effects of an unnamed facility on a particular town.
How to assess a proposed facility in your area
Ask the developer, water utility, wastewater provider, and electric utility for project-specific figures and plans. Useful records to request include:
- Expected water withdrawals and consumption, including the source of the water and assumptions about drought or constrained supply.
- The cooling design, expected water use under relevant operating conditions, and how blowdown will be handled or discharged.
- Expected electricity load and operating profile, including whether the facility expects to run continuously.
- Utility interconnection plans, anticipated grid or transmission upgrades, and filings that explain any rate or cost allocation.
- Local water-supply plans, wastewater capacity information, and grid reliability plans that address the project’s expected demand.
Compare the project’s withdrawal and consumption estimates separately, and check whether its electricity and water figures use clearly stated boundaries. Local records—not national totals—are what can show whether a specific facility fits within community infrastructure and planning assumptions.
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