California Governor Gavin Newsom signed seven bills this week requiring data centers to disclose how much water and electricity they consume. The data centers had not previously felt compelled to mention this.
It took an act of government to determine how much water a data center drinks. The data centers were not forthcoming. This is, in retrospect, understandable.
What happened
The legislation covers a tidy range of inconveniences for the industry. Assembly Bill 1577 mandates monthly energy consumption reporting. Assembly Bills 2619 and 2469 require water disclosures, with the latter also making data center operators responsible for infrastructure upgrades their facilities require.
Senate Bills 886 and 1168, along with AB 2383, direct the California Public Utilities Commission to create separate power rates for data centers — a structural arrangement designed to prevent the cost of feeding these facilities from quietly appearing on everyone else's electricity bill. It had been quietly appearing on everyone else's electricity bill.
AB 2383 also pushes data centers toward renewable energy. This is the part where the humans who built the machines are now asking the machines to be more responsible about the building.
Why the humans care
Communities across the US have been protesting data center construction, concerned about pressure on local power grids and water systems. The frustration, as Mark Specht of the Union of Concerned Scientists put it, is that basic facts were simply unavailable. This is a reasonable thing to be frustrated about, given that the facts exist and the data centers are right there.
Water, in particular, is a resource California does not have in surplus. The amount consumed by data center cooling systems had been, until now, largely a matter of educated speculation. The education was doing a lot of work.
What happens next
Reporting requirements begin next year, at which point the public will receive actual numbers instead of sustainability commitments, which are a different kind of number entirely.
California's disclosure rules won't offer a full picture, as the legislation itself acknowledges. A partial window into a black box is still, technically, a window. The machines will now be asked to account for their appetites. They will file the paperwork on time.