Texas Data Center Developers Play Offense on Water, Claiming Huge Cuts in Usage

As Texas confronts decades of water mismanagement and growing demands for electricity from data centers, the state’s top utility regulator, Public Utility Commission Chairman Thomas Gleeson, told a state House committee on Thursday that it’s critical to have a clear picture of how much water data centers use.

His testimony came as data center developers assured the House Committee on State Affairs that newly developed closed-loop cooling systems allow cooling fluid, sealed in a circuit, to absorb the heat from electric equipment and turn the fluid into vapor before it is condensed back into liquid.

For Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters, using a closed-loop system means its average data center uses less water than five typical households, said Haynes Strader, Skybox’s chief development officer.