As the demand for U.S. data centers grows with the expansion of artificial intelligence, Cloud services, and big data analytics, so do the energy loads these centers require.
By some estimates, data center energy demands are projected to consume as much as 9% of U.S. annual electricity generation by the year 2030. As much as 40% of data centers’ total annual energy consumption is related to cooling systems, which can also use a great deal of water. The peak demand for data centers on the hottest hours of the year is a much higher percentage and represents a large cost for the U.S. electric grid.
A new project led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Geothermal Technologies Office aims to address these cooling-system challenges by incorporating geothermal underground thermal energy storage (UTES) technology for data centers.