Closed-Loop Cooling

Circulates coolant through a sealed loop to reduce ongoing water withdrawal. Members can compare dry coolers, chillers, CDU units, and hybrid heat rejection.

Direct-to-Chip Liquid Cooling

Moves heat from processors into coolant through cold plates. It matters as AI hardware becomes more heat dense and air cooling becomes less efficient.

Immersion Cooling

Submerges electronics in dielectric fluid. The engineering question is not just cooling performance, but maintenance, safety, fluid lifecycle, and heat recovery.

Evaporative Cooling

Can lower energy demand but may increase water use. The community question is whether peak water demand is acceptable during drought or heat events.

Reclaimed Water

Uses treated wastewater instead of potable water. Members can track whether facilities rely on municipal drinking water, groundwater, or reclaimed sources.

Waste Heat Recovery

Captures rejected heat for nearby buildings, greenhouses, district heating, or industrial use. Recovery only counts when measured and connected to a useful load.

Power Usage Effectiveness = total facility energy divided by IT equipment energy. Lower is generally better, but it does not show water impact.

Water Usage Effectiveness = site water use divided by IT equipment energy. It helps compare cooling water demand per unit of computing work.

Annual averages can hide stress. Communities need to know peak water and power demand during summer heat, drought, and grid emergencies.

Recovered heat can be estimated with flow rate, heat capacity, and temperature change: recovered heat = m_dot * c_p * DeltaT.

Containment Reduces Mixing

Cold aisle and hot aisle separation helps prevent cold supply air from mixing with hot exhaust air. Better separation can reduce fan energy and improve cooling predictability.

Member Lab Question

If a proposed facility uses air cooling, ask how containment, economizers, filtration, humidity control, and seasonal heat rejection are designed and measured.

Water Transparency

Does the project disclose water source, water volume, peak demand, and drought plan?

Cooling Method

Does the facility explain its cooling architecture in plain language?

Low-Water Design

Does it use closed-loop, dry, liquid, reclaimed, or hybrid strategies to reduce potable water use?

Heat Recovery

Is waste heat captured for a verified useful purpose?

Grid Impact

Does the project disclose power demand and protections for local ratepayers?

Public Reporting

Are PUE, WUE, water use, outages, refrigerants, and emissions reported on a recurring schedule?