In its testimony, Sierra Club says that data centers must be mandated to report their current and projected water usage to the Texas Public Utility Commission, that the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) must incorporate these projections into planning as soon as possible, and that the TWDB must do a better job of tracking current and future needs of gas and coal power plants around the state.
“It’s time that our state’s water planning grows up and takes more responsibility for ensuring that Texans have water in the future – and this requires better numbers on data center water usage and the extremely thirsty gas and coal plants that power them around the clock,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation and legislative director for the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter. “Data centers themselves can use a lot of water, and gas and coal plants powering the centers will use magnitudes more. Our Legislature must require agencies to adequately investigate, project, and plan for both of these users that place significant strains on our water systems.”
Nationwide, data centers directly consume about 95 gallons of water per megawatt hour of energy used, while U.S. gas and coal plants consume 238 and 409 gal per MWh of energy produced, respectively. While some data centers use substantial amounts of water, larger water impacts occur beyond the data center’s walls and must be considered.
Gas and coal plants are the most water-intensive ways to power a data center. According to the Sierra Club’s analysis of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Texas fossil and nuclear plants have consumed roughly 100 billion gallons of water or more every year for almost a decade. In 2024, the most recent year for which final data is available, Texas gas plants consumed 56 billion gallons of water, coal plants consumed 34 billion gallons, and the state’s two nuclear plants consumed 26 billion.
New hyperscale data centers (already at 12 GW) have grown so quickly across the state that they already represent 15% of electricity consumption in ERCOT. With more demand from existing fossil and nuclear plants, these data centers are causing even more of the state's precious water resources to be consumed. Moreover, the connection queue contains applications for an additional 426 GW for data centers.
Though coal power provided just 12% of the state’s power needs at the end of 2024, its water consumption represented 31% of electricity-related statewide water consumption that year. Gas power plants, which supplied 51% of the state’s electricity in 2024, made up 48% of Texas’ total electricity-related water consumption. Renewable energy, meanwhile, supplied 30% of the state’s total electricity needs at the end of 2024, with solar at 8% and wind at 22%. But because wind and photovoltaic solar farms generate power without steam or cooling systems and thus need minimal water to operate, EIA doesn’t even bother to track their water usage.
The Senate Committee is expected to issue a report in December with recommendations on steps to better track and limit water use by large industrial users.
