The big data center buildup

A new report from the nonprofit NEXT 10 and University of California Riverside found that, in 2023, data centers in California pulled 10.82 terawatt-hours of electricity — 1 terawatt equals 1 trillion watts — from the state’s grid, or about enough to power 1 million U.S. households. This resulted in about 2.4 million tons of carbon emissions, even with California’s relatively clean energy mix. (On more fossil fuel-reliant grids, the emissions would have been twice that, or even more.) These same centers directly and indirectly consumed about 13.2 billion gallons of water for cooling and electricity generation. In Silicon Valley, more than 50 data centers accounted for about 60% of one electricity provider’s total load, prompting the utility to raise its customers rates to fund the transmission and substation upgrades and new battery energy storage the facilities required.