Nebraska data centers are required to turn in an annual report to Nebraska’s Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, but some state statutes are preventing the public from seeing just how much electricity and water data centers are using.
53 megawatts “during peak electrical demand” or “last year”?
Because timespans matter. 53 megawatts is the rough average annual power consumption of 5 households. So if that’s the datacenter’s annual power usage… they’re not using that much power after all. On the other hand, if that’s the monthly usage, that’s more in line with compute/data center usage. And if it’s daily use… 😬
Same with the water. 13 million gallons is about 260 thousand bathtubs worth of water. That’s basically what a town of ~300k will use in one night for bathing only. So for annual usage it’s not that bad. For monthly usage it’s passable. For daily usage… again 😬
You’ll need to give me a source for those numbers. My 1,300 square foot house has a 200 ampere main breaker, so I can’t draw more than about 0.024 megawatts. It would therefore take more than two thousand similar-sized houses to draw 53 megawatts—and that’s only at full power draw, which I never come remotely close to.
Also it’s worth mentioning that timespans don’t actually matter here: monthly usage and annual usage are the same number when dealing with watts. When a source says “average annual power consumption”, they likely mean that the power measurement is averaged throughout the year and that hot/cold seasons are accounted for.
If you wanted to do math involving time, you would need to use watt-hours (or kWh, MWh, etc.), for which time is a factor. For example, if you drew a constant rate of 1 kilowatt for a full day, you would have 24 hours * 1 kilowatt = 24 kilowatt-hours.
That MW figure has no timescale. it is a peak metric from one instant.
53 MW for one second = ~0.015 kWh
53 MW for one hour = ~53 MWh
53 MW continuously for one day = ~1.26 GWh
53 MW continuously for one year = ~462 GWh
There is no guessing as to how often that one datacenter operates at peak power consumption.
53 megawatts “during peak electrical demand” or “last year”?
Because timespans matter. 53 megawatts is the rough average annual power consumption of 5 households. So if that’s the datacenter’s annual power usage… they’re not using that much power after all. On the other hand, if that’s the monthly usage, that’s more in line with compute/data center usage. And if it’s daily use… 😬
Same with the water. 13 million gallons is about 260 thousand bathtubs worth of water. That’s basically what a town of ~300k will use in one night for bathing only. So for annual usage it’s not that bad. For monthly usage it’s passable. For daily usage… again 😬
You’re thinking of MWh, this is MW.
Meaning at a given moment of peak usage, it’s drawing that many MW. If it draws that much for 1 hour, then it consumed that many MWh.
A year’s worth of 5 households’ power consumption is one hour of peak operation is pretty bad…
You’ll need to give me a source for those numbers. My 1,300 square foot house has a 200 ampere main breaker, so I can’t draw more than about 0.024 megawatts. It would therefore take more than two thousand similar-sized houses to draw 53 megawatts—and that’s only at full power draw, which I never come remotely close to.
Also it’s worth mentioning that timespans don’t actually matter here: monthly usage and annual usage are the same number when dealing with watts. When a source says “average annual power consumption”, they likely mean that the power measurement is averaged throughout the year and that hot/cold seasons are accounted for.
If you wanted to do math involving time, you would need to use watt-hours (or kWh, MWh, etc.), for which time is a factor. For example, if you drew a constant rate of 1 kilowatt for a full day, you would have 24 hours * 1 kilowatt = 24 kilowatt-hours.
That MW figure has no timescale. it is a peak metric from one instant. 53 MW for one second = ~0.015 kWh 53 MW for one hour = ~53 MWh 53 MW continuously for one day = ~1.26 GWh 53 MW continuously for one year = ~462 GWh There is no guessing as to how often that one datacenter operates at peak power consumption.
53Mw constant utilization is a small datacenter in AI terms