Oklahomans are not the only ones raising questions about the amount of water that might be needed as data centers are being built in the state.
State officials in Virginia, the nation’s biggest source of data centers, more than 600, are raising the same kind of questions and challenges following announced plans by Google to build a massive data center.
Google plans on spending $9 billion in Oklahoma this year on expanding one data center in Pryor and building another in Stillwater. It also plans development of a data center in Sand Springs.
But in Virginia, the legislature is getting involved with the possibility of legislative options to limit the strain that data centers put on local water supplies. They’re same kind of concerns raised by residents in Yukon, Coweta and other sites where Google wants to build.
“Northern Virginia is the largest data center market in the world, constituting 13% of all reported data center operational capacity globally and 25% of the capacity in the Americas,” according to the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, which provides information to Virginia state policymakers reported TCD.
What spurred the legislative study was Google’s plan for a data center that would become the largest water user in the region. Now legislators are backing a plan to force Google to install rainwater-capture systems on at least 30% of the project’s rooftops.
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