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Yes. A data centre can use appropriately treated recycled water as cooling-tower make-up water, and some facilities already do. That does not mean untreated sewage goes near servers: the water must meet the needs of the equipment, microbial risks must be managed, and local rules govern use and discharge. Recycled make-up water can reduce reliance on drinking water, but an evaporative cooling tower still loses water to evaporation.
What does “recycled water” mean for a data centre?
In this context, recycled water can mean treated municipal wastewater reclaimed for industrial use, water recovered and reused within a facility, or another alternative supply such as HVAC condensate, harvested rainwater or cooling-tower blowdown. These sources are not interchangeable: their quality, availability and treatment needs differ. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) describes treated wastewater as a possible cooling supply in its basic information about water reuse.
It is important to distinguish reclaimed municipal wastewater from the recycling of a data centre’s own cooling water. In the first case, treated effluent from a wastewater facility is delivered to the site. In the second, the operator captures water already used in the cooling system and treats it for another use, often to reduce demand for new make-up water. A project may use one route or combine sources.
Neither route should be confused with a closed-loop coolant circuit serving servers or chips. That is a separate part of the cooling design. A facility can use liquid cooling at the IT equipment and still reject heat through a cooling tower that evaporates water. “Liquid cooled” therefore does not, by itself, mean “water-free.”
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How does recycled water cool a data centre?
The most straightforward arrangement is to treat recycled water to a suitable quality and use it as make-up water in an evaporative cooling system. The tower transfers heat from the facility to the air partly by evaporating water. Minerals and other dissolved material do not evaporate with it, so they become more concentrated in the remaining circulating water.
Operators manage that concentration by removing some water as blowdown and adding make-up water. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) describes the approximate balance as make-up water replacing evaporation, blowdown and drift. Drift is water carried out of the tower as small droplets. Recycled water can replace some of the conventional make-up supply, but it does not make evaporation disappear.
Water chemistry sets practical limits on how concentrated the circulating water can become. “Cycles of concentration” describes how much more concentrated the tower water is than its make-up supply. Higher cycles can reduce the amount of blowdown required, but only while scale, corrosion and biological growth remain controlled. The DOE’s cooling-tower management guidance explains why operators need to manage water quality and the tower together rather than treat make-up water as a simple supply substitution.
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What treatment does recycled water need?
There is no universal treatment recipe. Treatment depends on the source water, the cooling equipment and the quality limits established for that particular system. A project begins by characterizing the proposed supply and setting equipment-specific requirements; the treatment train is then selected to meet them.
Depending on water quality, treatment may include filtration, softening and disinfection, with more advanced processes where needed. A documented project in Quincy, Washington, uses softening, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis to treat used data-centre cooling water for reuse. That is an example of a site-specific system, not a prescription that every reclaimed-water project needs the same processes.
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Reverse osmosis (RO) separates water from many dissolved constituents, but it does not make residuals vanish. The Quincy project manages concentrated salts separately. In general, operators need a plan for treatment residuals such as brine, as well as for tower blowdown. DOE notes that RO can recover blowdown for use as make-up water, while adding energy and maintenance demands.
As a result, the right question is not simply whether water has been “recycled.” It is whether the source and treatment produce water appropriate for the planned equipment, and whether the resulting residual streams can be managed lawfully and reliably.
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It can be operated with health protections, but source-water treatment alone is not a substitute for managing the cooling tower. Cooling towers can aerosolize water, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns that aerosols carrying Legionella can pose a public-health risk. That makes prevention and ongoing operation central parts of the design.
Facilities should use a site-specific water-management programme, maintain appropriate disinfection and monitoring, and avoid conditions such as stagnant water that can support microbial growth. The CDC’s cooling-towers module provides guidance on managing this risk. A reclaimed source must be managed as part of the system; the word “treated” is not, on its own, proof that the tower is safe.
Nor does a handheld conductivity reading demonstrate microbiological safety. Conductivity can help an operator assess mineral concentration and manage cycles of concentration, but it does not establish that water is free of pathogens. Monitoring tools answer particular operating questions; they do not replace microbiological controls, an appropriate water-management plan or engineering judgement.
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What approvals and planning does a project need?
Requirements depend on the source, intended use and location. In the United States, EPA says states generally have primary authority over water reuse, and requirements vary with the source and use. A project must confirm the applicable state and local reuse conditions rather than assume a single nationwide quality threshold or permit applies everywhere.
Planning should cover the complete path from supply to discharge:
- Source and geography: Confirm the seasonal volume available, how close it is to the site, and whether the source can meet demand when the facility needs it. Pipes, pumping and storage can make a distant supply costly or impractical.
- Quality and equipment: Test the prospective water and set limits for the actual cooling equipment. Treatment needs depend on both the source and those limits.
- Residuals and discharge: Establish how blowdown, brine and other treatment residuals will be handled, and confirm any applicable discharge conditions.
- Operations and safety: Include tower disinfection, monitoring and water-management responsibilities in the operating plan.
- Whole-system trade-offs: Account for capital and operating costs, treatment and pumping energy, source reliability, potable-water displacement, withdrawals, evaporation, health controls and residual disposal.
These questions connect water reuse to infrastructure beyond the data-centre fence. PNNL frames a cooling-tower reuse project as a system involving a source, storage, treatment, distribution and cooling equipment. The availability of treated effluent nearby does not guarantee a viable connection: EPA’s Quincy case notes that distance can make connections expensive for other local facilities.
Where is recycled water already used for data-centre cooling?
Publicly documented examples show that different reuse arrangements are possible. Their reported figures describe particular projects or operators, not a universal saving that can be applied to another site.
Quincy, Washington: reuse of used cooling water
EPA’s 2023 case study describes a Microsoft–city utility project that began operating in 2021. It treats used data-centre cooling water with softening, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, and manages concentrated salts separately. EPA estimated that the project would offset 138 million gallons of demand per year and reported an overall project cost of $31 million. These are figures for that project, not a per-facility benchmark. The source is industrial cooling water that has already been used, not municipal sewage supplied directly to the data centre. EPA’s case study is titled Water Reuse Case Study: Quincy, Washington.
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Loudoun County, Virginia: reclaimed municipal water
Non-potable reclaimed water from the Broad Run Water Reclamation Facility supplies cooling to some data centres in Loudoun County. EPA’s 2026 Water Reuse Action Plan 2.0 reports that more than 745 million gallons were supplied for cooling in 2025. That is a reported supply volume, not a measured water saving for any one facility. The plan is available as an EPA PDF.
Douglas County, Georgia: municipal wastewater reuse
EPA reports that Google cools its data centres in Douglas County with recycled municipal wastewater. The company treats unevaporated leftover water before returning it to the Chattahoochee River. The cited EPA passage does not provide a site-specific savings figure, so none can be inferred from the example.
Why operator-wide figures need careful reading
In 2026, Microsoft reported an average water-usage effectiveness (WUE) of 0.27 litres per kilowatt-hour for its owned fleet in 2025. WUE relates water use to IT electricity; it does not say what share of that water was recycled. Microsoft also reported that recycled, reused or non-potable sources accounted for 74% in Quincy, 99% in Singapore and 79% in San Antonio. Those combined categories are not percentages of reclaimed municipal wastewater alone. The company’s figures and definitions appear in its 2026 account of its water-intensity work.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does recycled water reduce drinking-water use?
Using treated effluent or another non-potable source can displace some potable make-up water, which is one reason a project may be considered. But a volume supplied is not automatically the same as a volume saved: the result depends on what source the facility would otherwise have used, how much water the cooling system consumes, and how the project’s boundaries are counted.
It is also necessary to distinguish reduced potable-water demand from reduced total water consumption. An evaporative tower still loses water through evaporation, and the facility may need to replace blowdown and drift. A complete comparison should account for source withdrawals, evaporation, treatment and pumping energy, water reliability and residual disposal—not just the label on the make-up supply.
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What are the alternatives to reclaimed municipal water?
Reclaimed municipal effluent is one option, not the only one. A facility may recover and treat its own cooling water, use other alternative supplies such as condensate or rainwater where suitable, or change how heat is rejected. The practical choice depends on local water availability, treatment needs, equipment, energy, health controls, permits, distance to infrastructure and cost.
Hybrid or dry heat-rejection systems can reduce or avoid evaporative cooling water in suitable designs, but they involve a different heat-rejection arrangement and must be assessed on their own operational merits. The DOE’s discussion of direct liquid cooling includes configurations that still reject heat through a cooling tower. Microsoft has separately described a zero-water-evaporation design using a different heat-rejection approach. Those examples reinforce that the cooling method at the server and the method used to reject heat from the facility are related but distinct design decisions.
How should an operator assess a proposed reuse project?
A useful assessment compares the full water system rather than asking only whether a recycled source is available. The sequence below turns the main design and operational questions into decision points.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems- Define the outcome. Identify whether the priority is to reduce potable-water demand, limit withdrawals from a stressed source, improve supply reliability or reduce total water use. Those goals are related but not identical.
- Compare available sources. Determine seasonal quantity, reliability and distance for reclaimed municipal water, onsite recovery and other suitable supplies. Include storage and distribution needs.
- Set equipment-specific water limits. Characterize the source and establish what the cooling system requires before selecting treatment. Do not assume one facility’s treatment train will suit another source.
- Design for water chemistry and system control. Set operating limits for concentration, scaling and corrosion, and determine how blowdown will be managed. Increasing cycles of concentration is only useful while the tower remains controlled.
- Plan health controls and residual handling. Integrate disinfection, monitoring and a water-management programme; identify the permitted routes for blowdown, brine and other residuals.
- Evaluate the whole-life trade-off. Compare capital and operating costs, treatment and pumping energy, reliability, evaporation, potable-water displacement and disposal obligations. A water source can be beneficial on one measure and burdensome on another.
For operators monitoring tower concentration, DOE discusses conductivity as a way to compare mineral concentration in make-up and circulating water and describes automated blowdown control. A conductivity instrument or controller can support that specific operating task, but neither can establish pathogen safety or replace a qualified system design.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can reclaimed wastewater be used in a data centre’s direct-to-chip cooling loop?
It should not be assumed that water acceptable as cooling-tower make-up is also suitable for a server-side liquid-cooling circuit. The two systems have different equipment and water-quality requirements, so a design must specify and validate the quality needed for each loop.
Does recycled water have to be drinking-water quality before it reaches a cooling tower?
Not necessarily; reuse requirements are tied to the intended use and location, rather than a single universal drinking-water standard. The operator still needs to establish water-quality limits for the cooling equipment and meet applicable local reuse conditions.
Can a data centre reuse cooling-tower blowdown?
It can be treated for reuse in some systems; DOE notes that reverse osmosis can recover blowdown for use as make-up water. The approach also creates treatment residuals and adds energy and maintenance demands, so the recovery process needs its own operational and disposal plan.
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Does recycled cooling water create Legionella risk by itself?
The relevant concern is the cooling tower’s water management and potential aerosol exposure, not simply whether the source was recycled. CDC guidance focuses on controls such as an appropriate water-management programme, disinfection and monitoring.
