Meta plans to reduce the amount of water its data centers use by implementing a system where sites will operate at higher temperatures but lower humidity.
Facebook’s parent company said it is testing some sites to operate at 90 degrees Fahrenheit, about 5 degrees above normal temperatures, as part of broader plans to become “water positive” by 2030.
Meta also told audiences at the recent 7×24 Exchange Fall conference in San Antonio, Texas, that it also plans to reduce the frequency of backwash used to clean filter systems, as well as tweaking the water softening systems used in many of its services. data centers.
How will this work?
Meta’s pilots involved adjusting the temperature environment in only one half of the data center while keeping the other side at the current level of comparison.
Meta hasn’t clearly specified how much water it intends to save annually from these measures, saying only “millions of gallons,” according to reports.
On a per-location basis, Meta estimated the savings would range from 10% to 65% depending on the region.
Why this move?
Data centers are a huge drain on the world’s limited water supply, according to a report by the US Department of Energy, and these centers combined used 174 billion gallons of water in 2020 in the US alone.
The target is a water consumer in and of itself, the big tech company used 2.57 million cubic meters of water over the course of 2021 primarily as a result cloud hosting which is responsible for huge swaths of consumer data, According to GlobalData. (Opens in a new tab)
Even a slight decrease in water production per data center can cause huge positive ripples globally, Meta currently operates approximately 40 million square feet of data centers globally As per its website. (Opens in a new tab)
Meta isn’t the only big tech company looking to make its data centers more sustainable.
Microsoft says it has created carbon-neutral alternatives to the diesel generators used for backup in its data centers, in the event of power outages and other service outages.
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