Fresh water is a vital resource that’s essential for life. As communities grow, they must carefully manage their limited supply of drinking water against the growing demand from new residents and businesses, and the effects of climate change.
As a global service provider, Equinix keeps this delicate balance in mind any time we decide to build a new data center. We want to be a responsible member of every community we become a part of, and among other things, that means using water in a responsible manner. In addition to measuring and improving water efficiency, one important aspect of responsible water consumption is exploring opportunities to use alternative water sources that help reduce demand for potable water.
Why use alternative water sources?
Water is life. We humans rely on fresh water that meets a water quality level safe for our consumption (potable water). Water also supports other essential ecosystem services we rely on, like nutrient cycling and aquatic habitat. We all learned as children that the vast majority of water on Earth—more than 97%—is salt water. But what you may not know is that only about 0.78% of the world’s freshwater supplies are accessible to humans as surface water or groundwater; the rest is locked up as ice.
Therefore, data centers and other industrial facilities should look for opportunities to reduce their demand for potable water. Taking advantage of alternative water sources like reclaimed water and desalinated water can help with that, and this is what operators like Equinix are exploring.
What is reclaimed water?
Reclaimed water is wastewater that’s been treated at a minimum to an acceptable level for non-potable uses such as irrigation, toilet flushing and cooling systems. This non-potable reclaimed water is also commonly called “purple pipe” water, which refers to the color of the dedicated pipes used to keep reclaimed water from mixing with the potable water supply in a building. Some communities are even starting to treat their reclaimed water to potable water quality standards in order to add resilience to their local water supply, but that is beyond the focus of this blog post.
The supply of reclaimed water in a community is tied to the amount of wastewater the community produces. As long as people keep bathing and flushing toilets, they’ll continue to send wastewater down the drain. And as long as the necessary regulations and infrastructure are in place, communities will have the opportunity to reclaim that wastewater.
Unfortunately, many communities don’t have regulations in place that allow for reclaimed water use, though we’re seeing the tide turn as reclaimed water grows in popularity as an alternative water source.
In the U.S. alone, wastewater treatment plants process about 34 billion gallons of wastewater every day.[1] However, not all of those plants are treating wastewater to reclaimed water quality standards.
The use of reclaimed water to alleviate pressure on potable water supplies is a growing movement that benefits everyone:
- It enables industrial users to leverage energy saving technologies like evaporative cooling without increasing demand on the community’s potable water supply.
- It reduces the amount of drinking water that communities use for water-intensive purposes like irrigating lawns and flushing toilets.
It’s important that industrial users seek opportunities to collaborate with communities in order to realize the value of establishing water circularity, which involves recycling and repurposing water resources.
At Equinix, 25% of our water use in 2023 came from non-potable sources, most of which was reclaimed water. We are currently using reclaimed water at our data centers in places like Singapore, Ashburn and Silicon Valley. In fact, we first announced the use of reclaimed water in Silicon Valley way back in 2010.[2] We continue to look for more opportunities to use reclaimed water at our facilities as our business grows.
What is desalination?
Desalination, or “desal” for short, means treating seawater or brackish groundwater to remove salinity, turning salt water into fresh water. Considering that more than 97% of the world’s water supplies are salt water, there’s a huge supply of water that could hypothetically be desalinated. However, desal requires a substantial amount of energy to produce, so it’s not always the most efficient solution for meeting a community’s water needs. Also, the desalination process produces a lot of brine waste, which then needs to be disposed of thoughtfully to avoid impacting coastal ecosystems.
Furthermore, there are practical limitations around when and where desalination can be performed. It’s not an option for communities that are located far away from the ocean, unless they have brackish groundwater challenges. Even in coastal communities, desalinated water can’t always reach everyone without significant infrastructure and energy required to distribute the desalinated water to consumers.
Data center operators have to weigh the tradeoffs between water use, energy consumption and carbon emissions when using desal. In some communities, desalinated water is already part of the municipal supply network which data centers are typically connected to, and the data center company may not have a choice in using this water.
In other locations, data center operators may have the opportunity to support new desal projects to enhance the local water supply. In these places, it’s important for data center designers to understand the embedded energy in their water delivery, compared with the embedded water in their power supply to the site. This is an area of developing research, which we’ve been supporting through research projects with graduate students at several academic institutions in regions where we operate, to shed further light on how to evaluate and balance these tradeoffs.
Desalination is part of the municipal water supply that serves our data centers in locations like Singapore and Sydney.
Equinix is looking for partners to help enable alternative water sources
Equinix is dedicated to exploring alternative water opportunities across both new builds and our existing data centers. We’re interested in partnering with water authorities to expand the availability of alternative water sources. We view this as another example of how data centers can demonstrate responsible water stewardship and contribute to the community.
If you represent a water authority with a planned or existing alternative water supply project that could support industrial uses, we want to hear from you. Contact us today to start the conversation.
Also, check out the Equinix sustainability report for more information on how we strategize for efficient resource consumption in every aspect of our operations.
[1] Sources and Solutions: Wastewater, United States Environmental Protection Agency.
[2] Equinix to use recycled water in Santa Clara, DataCenterDynamics, November 25, 2010.
Subscribe to the Equinix Blog