Sierra Club urges Texas Senate to mandate better water reporting and planning for data centers and power plants
The Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter is urging the Texas Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs to mandate data centers report their water usage to the Public Utility Commission. They also call for the Water Development Board to incorporate these projections into planning and to better track water usage by fossil fuel power plants, citing significant water consumption by both sectors.
Ahead of a public hearing by the Texas Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs, the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter is advocating for new mandates on water reporting for data centers and the fossil fuel power plants that support them. Cyrus Reed, conservation and legislative director for the Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, stated that the state's water planning needs to mature and take responsibility for future water availability, requiring better data on water usage.
The Sierra Club's testimony proposes that data centers be required to report their current and projected water usage to the Texas Public Utility Commission. Furthermore, it suggests the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) must integrate these projections into its planning and improve its tracking of current and future water needs for gas and coal power plants statewide. The group highlighted that data centers directly consume about 95 gallons of water per megawatt-hour, while gas and coal plants consume significantly more, at 238 and 409 gallons per MWh, respectively.
Rapid growth in hyperscale data centers in Texas, which already account for 15% of electricity consumption in ERCOT, exacerbates water strain. Texas fossil and nuclear plants have consumed over 100 billion gallons of water annually for nearly a decade, with gas plants consuming 56 billion gallons and coal plants 34 billion gallons in 2024. In contrast, renewable energy sources like wind and solar require minimal water for operation. The Senate Committee is anticipated to release a report in December with recommendations to monitor and limit water use by major industrial consumers.