‘Growth in the number of data centers endangers the supply of drinking water to Noord-Holland’

If the plans go ahead to expand the number of data centers in North Holland, so much cooling water will be needed that a freshwater shortage could arise in the province during extreme weather conditions. This is evident from provincial documents.

The arrival of five new data centers at Hollands Kroon, as the plans are, means that 10 million cubic meters of drinking water in cooling water may be needed per year. This is apparent from research commissioned by the province of North Holland. A webinar attended by dozens of officials in November 2020, which is online, says that this could lead to a freshwater shortage during extreme weather conditions. That writes the Noordhollands Dagblad.

The researchers base their calculations on an estimate that the current two data centers in the municipality of Hollands Kroon require 525 cubic meters of water per hour and therefore 4.6 million cubic meters per year. In addition, data centers use chemicals to kill bacteria and prevent limescale from using the cooling water, but the researchers warn that the chemicals and quantities involved are not registered. The investigation report is not public. According to the authors, the province did not want to release this for publication.

According to Cees Loggen, deputy of the province of Noord-Holland for Spatial Planning, this was because too much was still unclear: “Unfortunately, we had to conclude that, in our opinion, the aforementioned report did not yet provide sufficient research data, the sample was too small to to draw substantiated conclusions. For that reason, and that reason alone, we have not published the report.” According to him, the plan is that a data center strategy must be sent to the Provincial Council before the summer recess.

In Hollands Kroon are data centers of Microsoft and Google. Microsoft has not yet responded and Google has told Noordhollands Dagblad to discharge water into a canal, but to do so in accordance with the permit. Microsoft has started building a second data center, but the province of North Holland wants to investigate whether the permit is illegal. There has been criticism for some time about the granting of permits by the municipality of Hollands Kroon for the construction of data centers. Critics argue that the consequences are too great to leave to municipalities and that too few guarantees are provided for delivery.

Update, Thursday 25 March: PWN, responsible for the drinking water supply in North Holland, emphasizes that the supply of drinking water is not in danger, not even during heat waves. PWN director Ria Doedel: “We currently supply 0.6 percent of our total supply as cooling water, for example to data centers. It is legally regulated that drinking water always has priority over industrial water.”