Water Ledger

Michigan · Data centers and water

What would a data center mean for local water?

Choose a community, a size and a cooling design. Water Ledger estimates how much water would be taken from the local system, how much would evaporate and how much would come back through the sewer, on an average day and on the hottest days, using 30 years of Michigan weather. The estimates are ranges built from published methods and checked against what operators have reported. Every number links to its source.

Community

Weather drives cooling water. Each region uses 30 years of hourly weather.

Often not published. Large campuses range from about 100 MW to over 1 GW.

Cooling design
Water source

Assumptions you can change

Share of the site covered by buildings, parking and roads.

Used to estimate the utility's average day, which isn't published. Includes homes and businesses.

Water taken from the system, average day

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See something wrong or out of date? Suggest a correction.

Michigan proposals

What's been proposed

Projects reported in public meetings and local news. Where an operator or utility has published a water figure, it is shown with its source; load a project into the calculator to compare it with the estimate.

Entries re-verified Oct 20, 2026. At least 52 Michigan communities had data center moratoria as of June 2026 (Michigan Public).

Who decides

Water questions are split across several decisions

Your township

Rezoning, special land use and site plans. Can attach conditions, adopt a moratorium, and write water standards into its ordinance.

Your water and sewer utility

Whether it can serve the project within its plant capacity and wholesale contracts, and what the site may discharge to the sewer.

The state (EGLE)

Large withdrawals from wells (registration at 100,000 gallons a day, permits above 2 million), direct discharges, wetlands and floodplains.

Methods and sources

How the numbers are made

Heat from the computers is converted to evaporation hour by hour over 30 years of weather, using the physics and parameter ranges in the published literature. Each estimate is run hundreds of times across those ranges; the bold number is the middle result and the range covers the middle 80%. The model is checked against operator and utility data. Full method, parameters, validation and changelog are on the methods page.

    Corrections

    Suggest a correction

    If a number, a source or a project status is wrong or out of date, tell us. Corrections are reviewed, and changes are listed on the methods page with the date and reason.

    Need an answer for a specific proposal? Northline Hydrology provides independent water review for large new water users in Great Lakes communities, for townships, utilities and engineering firms.

    Visit Northline Hydrology