Luke Burris is a professional engineer with over 10 years of experience at Barge Design Solutions. His work has ranged from treatment plant and pump station design to hydraulic modeling to master planning. In his free time, he enjoys running and doing anything outside with his wife and son.

Our world is becoming increasingly connected by technology and more and more facilities are being constructed to support this growth. These facilities are deemed “mission critical” due to their necessity for maintaining the continuous operation of vast networks and services. Mission critical facilities need robust and redundant utility service: electrical, telecommunications, water, and sewer.  

A common mission critical facility is a data center. The Southeast has become a key area of growth for hyperscale data centers due to its location, abundance of water, affordable and reliable power from TVA, a favorable climate, and affordable and available land. These massive facilities are often constructed in industrial parks and have large water demands to supply evaporative cooling systems and large wastewater demands to collect blowdown water for treatment. The utility demands scale with the quantity of data servers installed or buildings constructed. These facilities also present unique challenges in terms of water supply and effluent water quality, particularly for small and medium sized utilities.   

This presentation will highlight the unique challenges presented to the water and wastewater industry to serve these facilities.  We will examine the utility needs from the perspective of the mission critical facility including quantity, quality, and pressure of water available, reliability of system, planned projects to increase system capacity, existing capacity reservations for other customers, and industrial use regulations and pretreatment requirements. We will also identify the needs of the utility providing service to the facility such as opportunities for reuse of treated effluent, understanding the usage patterns of the facility, master planning for potential growth in industrial areas, and opportunities to expand and improve infrastructure.