ENVIRONMENTAL CENTS: Water, Power, Data Centers and Rights-of-Way
Data Center water and power needs affect land required for rights-of-way.
By Bruce Saller
COLUMNIST
A Data Center requires a lot of power and water. The recent Leesburg data centers have been allocated 1.23 million gallons of water per day and will need 72 Million Watts (MW) of power.
The 1.23 million gallons per day equates to 855 gallons per minute, which can be supplied by an 8-inch pipe. So even four of these centers could be supplied by a 16-inch pipe (since the volume increases with the diameter squared). This pipe may or may not fit within the city/county existing utility right-of-way.
A Data Center’s power normally is delivered by either 115 thousand Volt (KV) or 230 KV transmission lines to the Data Center’s dedicated sub-station. The right-of-way for these transmission lines is around 100 ft in width. Each mile of transmission lines requires 12 acres of land for the right-of-way. So, Dominion may need to obtain a large right-of-way to provide power to new Data Centers.
The land required for these rights-of-way could be hundreds of acres and have a significant impact on residents, especially if miles of transmission lines and water pipes need to be installed.
Information on potential paths for these utilities needs to be provided as early as possible in the planning process so the impacts to residents can be assessed.
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