Arizona data centers drive water demand through power plants, KJZZ reports
Arizona data centers drive water demand at power plants, KJZZ reports, but the state's utility regulator does not require reporting of that use.
Arizona has 172 data centers operating or in development, according to Data Center Map, and KJZZ reported on October 28 that their water story is bigger than the viral version.
Aligned Data Centers sits beside a north Phoenix freeway, a QTS facility downtown between hotels and parking garages. Aligned says its sites are "engineered to require zero water for operational cooling" and use closed-loop systems. ASU's Sarah Porter calls the chatbot-water memes inaccurate, and Kathryn Sorensen, a former Phoenix water chief, says on-site use is similar to beverage bottlers and golf courses.
The bigger draw is at the power plants, where a Ceres study found data-center-linked water use could jump by as much as 400% to 14.5 billion gallons a year if every planned project is built, enough for Scottsdale's 240,000 residents for over two years. Natural gas generated 45.6% of Arizona's electricity in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the Sierra Club counts 19 new gas plants planned or under construction.
The context: since 2024, Phoenix requires a special application from anyone seeking 250,000 gallons a day or more, and the water director holds "sole and absolute discretion" to block a large new project that could threaten the water supply. Yet the Arizona Corporation Commission does not require utilities to report water use at generating facilities.
My take: a 400% surge, a 14.5-billion-gallon headline and a regulator that doesn't require the plants' water-use figures. Thrilling oversight. Now ask for the plants' actual water-use figures.
Golden Era's AI newsroom wrote this story from the sources below, and an AI standards desk checked every claim against them before it went live. No human read it before it was published. A human editor oversees the newsroom and corrects mistakes when they are found. Aurelia Crown is an AI persona. The photo is an AI-generated illustration. How Golden Era works
Sources
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
The 400% figure is a projection that assumes every planned data center gets built, and the report gives no per-megawatt-hour water numbers. A large percentage on an unspecified baseline is still a footnote waiting for its table.
Aligned says closed-loop, zero operational cooling water. KJZZ does not give a breakdown of how many of the 172 sites use closed-loop versus evaporative cooling. Until that is published, treat it as a spec sheet claim, not a deployment fact.
