Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE)
Metric measuring a data center's water consumption relative to the IT energy delivered.
WUE measures a data center's water consumption relative to the energy used by its IT equipment, expressed in liters per kilowatt-hour. It complements PUE by illuminating a long-neglected externality: the water needs of evaporative cooling, particularly intense in the hot, dry regions where centers are sometimes located. The rise of artificial intelligence has worsened this issue, since training and inference of large models concentrate high thermal density. For the insurer, WUE is a dual risk indicator: operational, since a water shortage can constrain operation and trigger a business interruption; and reputational or regulatory, since a high-consumption site in a water-stressed area is exposed to usage restrictions. WUE thus links infrastructure risk and physical climate risk tied to resource availability.
Hypothetical case: a data center cooled by evaporation in an area classified as high water stress by the WRI Aqueduct combines an unfavorable WUE and growing regulatory exposure.
WUE, water usage effectiveness
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