A data-center site is feasible only when the required power, water, cooling, network service, permits, and expansion capacity are demonstrably deliverable to the specific parcel on the project’s schedule. A nearby substation, water main, industrial-zoned parcel, or fiber line is a lead for investigation—not proof of service.
Assess candidates against the actual workload and phasing plan, obtain written utility and carrier evidence, model direct and indirect resource impacts, and compare delivery date, reliability, cost, resilience, environmental effects, and approval risk. The framework below shows what to request, how to test it, and when to reject a site.
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What a credible site assessment must prove
Data-center siting is an infrastructure-delivery problem rather than a map exercise. The central question is whether this parcel can receive the resources and permissions needed for the initial build and later phases, with acceptable reliability and cost. ASHRAE’s site-planning guidance identifies workload, density, power, cooling, connectivity, resilience, permitting, and stakeholder conditions as interdependent planning inputs.
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- Power: firm capacity, connection point, upgrade scope, cost allocation, interconnection milestones, power quality, and a realistic energization date.
- Water and cooling: sustainable source, physical delivery and treatment capacity, legal rights, seasonal constraints, discharge arrangements, and the energy consequences of the cooling design.
- Connectivity: carriers that will serve the parcel, route entry points, capacity, latency, physical path separation, repair arrangements, and shared failure domains.
- Approvals and impacts: zoning, environmental and water permissions, stormwater, emissions, noise, hazards, traffic, and a credible community-engagement path.
- Expansion: land, utility and network headroom, and a schedule that does not depend on uncommitted future capacity.
The sources available for this framework establish the questions and evidence required; they do not certify any particular parcel’s capacity, rights, route, permit, price, hazard rating, or delivery date. Those facts must come from current utility, carrier, regulator, planning, and executed-project documents.
1. Define the workload before comparing land
Write a one-page requirements baseline before a broker, utility, or consultant scores sites. Every candidate must be tested against the same assumptions.
Record the technical and schedule baseline
- Initial IT load and each planned expansion phase, with the date each phase must be energized.
- Rack density and the mix of conventional and high-density or accelerated-computing workloads.
- Cooling architecture under consideration, including allowable supply temperatures and redundancy.
- Availability, maintenance, and recovery objectives; identify which failures the design must withstand simultaneously.
- Network latency, throughput, geographic user or exchange locations, and acceptable maintenance windows.
- Target operating life, expansion horizon, land required for later buildings, substations, generators, tanks, and treatment equipment.
- Commercial constraints such as maximum connection contribution, operating-cost ceiling, and tolerance for schedule uncertainty.
Changing any of these assumptions changes the answer. A site that works for a modest first phase may fail when the expansion load, cooling water, or route-diversity requirement is included.
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Power is usually the schedule-critical dependency. ASHRAE recommends checking substation proximity, available capacity, utility expansion plans, interconnection requirements, and equipment lead times early. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) also describes a portfolio response involving generation, storage, grid expansion, efficiency, demand flexibility, planning, and interconnection reform.
Request a written utility study
Ask the serving utility for a parcel-specific letter or study that addresses the complete requested load, not a generic statement that service is nearby. Require:
- Available firm capacity today and the capacity reserved for the project.
- Proposed point of interconnection, voltage, substation or transmission work, and protection requirements.
- Required upgrades, procurement lead times, construction milestones, and the date each phase can receive service.
- Estimated connection and upgrade costs, with the party responsible for each item and the conditions that could change the estimate.
- Power-quality characteristics, outage history or reliability metrics the utility can disclose, and planned maintenance constraints.
- Whether the load is firm, interruptible, curtailable, or otherwise flexible, and the notice and compensation terms for curtailment.
- How the utility will treat the full incremental load, including later phases, standby equipment, and auxiliary systems.
Test the first phase and the ultimate build separately. A utility may offer an acceptable date for the initial block while requiring a second substation, transmission reinforcement, or a new generation resource for expansion.
Check the schedule against long-lead equipment
Interconnection approval can arrive before transformers, switchgear, breakers, conductors, or substation construction are actually available. Put every dependency on one critical-path schedule and identify the owner of each milestone. A parcel adjacent to a substation is not evidence of spare capacity, an approved connection, or an energization date.
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Evaluate proposed on-site and flexible supply
If the project relies on batteries, on-site generation, renewable contracts, or demand response, document operating limits, fuel or charging availability, emissions permits, islanding capability, maintenance, and performance during a prolonged grid event. Flexible load can help the grid, but it must not be counted as firm capacity unless the utility’s agreement makes that commitment explicit. Maryland’s 2026 executive order specifically highlights accurate load reporting, full incremental energy needs, flexibility, and infrastructure-cost responsibility in data-center development (Executive Order 01.01.2026.16).
3. Test water in three separate ways
Water feasibility has three different tests. The Open Compute Project’s March 2026 Water-Heat-Energy overview distinguishes environmental capacity, infrastructure capacity, and water rights. Passing one does not imply passing the others.
Environmental capacity: can the basin sustain the demand?
Assess the watershed or aquifer’s seasonal and long-term condition, drought restrictions, competing users, climate projections used by the relevant authority, and the cumulative demand from other developments. A favorable regional water-stress map is only a screening signal. It does not prove that the local provider can allocate additional water.
Infrastructure capacity: can treated water physically reach the parcel?
Obtain the provider’s hydraulic and treatment assessment for the project’s maximum flow, peak day, water quality, pressure, storage, and redundancy. Confirm the diameter and route of mains, pumping capacity, treatment-plant headroom, fire-flow obligations, construction schedule, and who funds extensions or upgrades. Include non-potable, reclaimed, or industrial supplies only when the provider confirms quality, quantity, reliability, and a connection design suitable for the cooling system.
Water rights: is the use legally authorized?
Identify the owner of the appropriation or allocation, the quantity and priority, transfer or permitting requirements, drought curtailment rules, and the project’s contractual right to receive water. A supplier’s physical ability to deliver water does not establish that the project has a legal right to consume it.
Build a phase-by-phase water balance
For each build phase and representative operating condition, quantify intake, evaporation, blowdown, treatment losses, discharge, storage, and makeup water. Show normal, peak-weather, maintenance, drought, and outage cases. Verify discharge limits, temperature, chemistry, and monitoring obligations with the relevant authority. Maryland’s order calls out water supply, cooling alternatives, stormwater, and discharges as issues for review.
4. Compare cooling by total resource impact
Climate and workload density determine how much cooling equipment runs and how often. Evaporative systems can reduce electricity use in dry conditions but consume water. Dry or air-based cooling can reduce on-site water use while increasing electricity demand; some of that additional electricity may carry indirect water use at power plants. DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program guideline explains this water-energy tradeoff, although its federal-consolidation context and age mean it should be used for the principle, not as a current market benchmark.
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Evaluate alternatives under local weather
- Model annual and peak power for evaporative, hybrid, and dry-cooling modes using the site’s hourly weather and the planned IT load.
- Calculate potable, reclaimed, and other permitted-water demand separately; do not hide source-quality or treatment constraints in one total.
- Test operation during drought restrictions, high wet-bulb temperatures, water-quality excursions, and maintenance of treatment equipment.
- Include pumps, fans, chillers, heat rejection, water treatment, and backup systems in both energy and water accounting.
- Price infrastructure, chemicals, discharge treatment, energy, and possible future restrictions over the project life.
The preferred design is site-specific. A lower on-site water figure is not automatically the lower-impact option if it requires substantially more electricity from a water-intensive generation mix.
5. Verify connectivity at the parcel and along the route
Connectivity is a specialized siting requirement, but general guidance does not provide a universal route-diversity number. Obtain evidence from carriers and network designers for the actual parcel.
Demand parcel-level documentation
- Written confirmation of which carriers can serve the address, the service demarcation, installation method, and committed capacity.
- Physical entry points, conduit ownership, pole or bridge crossings, manholes, meet-me locations, and construction requirements.
- Latency and throughput to the users, cloud or exchange locations, and other sites that matter to the workload.
- Route maps showing where supposedly diverse paths share a conduit, road crossing, building entrance, upstream node, or other failure domain.
- Repair-time targets, spares, maintenance procedures, escalation contacts, and the effect of a simultaneous utility or civil-works outage.
- Expansion capacity and the lead time for additional circuits or carriers.
Two carrier contracts can still depend on one bridge, duct bank, pole line, or upstream aggregation facility. Map diversity to the failure scenarios in the availability design rather than counting provider names.
Match network evidence to the workload
Latency-sensitive services may require geographically separated sites or deterministic paths; batch workloads may tolerate longer routes but still need adequate throughput and recovery capacity. State which failures the design must survive and require the network proposal to demonstrate independence for those failures.
6. Screen approvals, hazards, and community conditions
Confirm the permission path
Verify title and site control, zoning, building and electrical permits, environmental review, water appropriation, discharge authorization, stormwater design, air permits for generators, noise limits, traffic requirements, and any utility franchise or road-opening approvals. Ask the planning authority for a written sequence, decision-makers, hearing dates, appeal rights, and conditions that could delay energization.
Maryland’s 2026 order treats the energy plan, incremental energy needs, infrastructure-cost responsibility, water supply, cooling alternatives, stormwater, discharges, and backup-generator emissions as material review topics (Executive Order 01.01.2026.16). Requirements vary by jurisdiction, so use that order as an example of issues to investigate, not as a universal permit checklist.
Assess physical hazards and climate exposure
Use current, location-specific flood, wildfire, extreme-heat, seismic, wind, storm, and ground-condition data. Identify access-road closures, fuel-delivery interruptions, water-plant exposure, substation and transmission vulnerabilities, and whether insurance or code requirements change the design. The cited sources do not rate any particular parcel; the project team must obtain the applicable maps, studies, and engineering opinions.
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Engage affected communities early
Publish understandable information about load, water, cooling, emissions, noise, traffic, construction, and expected infrastructure work. Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles emphasize grid reliability, minimizing freshwater use, transparent and verifiable impact information, and early engagement with local governments and Indigenous communities. Apply the same discipline elsewhere while following local law and consultation requirements.
ERCOT’s 2026 Data Center Impact RFI illustrates why grid operators seek detailed information about large, changing loads. A project that cannot provide accurate load, timing, and flexibility data may face additional scrutiny or an unfavorable connection schedule.
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7. Use a documented comparison scorecard
There is no source-backed universal score or weighting scheme. Set weights according to the workload, geography, schedule, resilience objective, and financing constraints. Keep hard gates separate from scored preferences: a site without a legal water path or credible energization date should not win because it has cheaper land.
| Decision axis | Evidence to compare | Typical reject condition |
|---|---|---|
| Power deliverability | Firm capacity, connection point, upgrade scope, milestones, service date | No written capacity or date for the required phase |
| Power cost and reliability | Connection contribution, tariffs, quality, outage and maintenance arrangements | Unpriced upgrades or reliability below the workload requirement |
| Water sustainability | Basin condition, seasonal supply, drought rules, cumulative demand | Supply depends on uncommitted or prohibited withdrawals |
| Water infrastructure | Treatment, mains, pressure, storage, redundancy, extension schedule | Provider cannot deliver peak flow or required quality |
| Water rights and discharge | Allocation, permits, contract rights, discharge limits and monitoring | Rights or discharge approvals are unavailable or speculative |
| Cooling fit | Modeled energy, water, heat, maintenance, and drought performance | No workable mode during design weather or restrictions |
| Connectivity | Carrier confirmations, route maps, latency, capacity, failure domains | Only one vulnerable path or unverified “diverse” routes |
| Approvals | Zoning, permit sequence, environmental and community conditions | Approval path or decision authority is unclear |
| Hazards and access | Flood, fire, heat, seismic, wind, roads, fuel and utility exposure | Unmitigable risk or unacceptable insurance/code burden |
| Expansion | Land, utility headroom, network growth, cooling and water rights | Later phases rely on speculative capacity |
| Lifecycle value | Capital, operating, resource, outage, mitigation, and schedule costs | Low land price masks high delivered infrastructure cost |
For every score, record the document title, issuing party, date, assumptions, confidence level, and the next action needed to close an uncertainty. Separate “confirmed,” “conditionally offered,” “under study,” and “assumed” capacity.
8. Follow a gated due-diligence sequence
- Freeze the requirements baseline. Approve load, phases, cooling, network, availability, schedule, and expansion assumptions.
- Run a desktop screen. Eliminate parcels with incompatible zoning, obvious hazard exposure, no plausible utility corridor, or inadequate land for the full plan.
- Open utility requests simultaneously. Send the same load and schedule package to the electric, water, wastewater, and telecommunications providers.
- Obtain conditional technical studies. Request interconnection, hydraulic, water-rights, cooling, carrier-route, and geotechnical studies with stated assumptions.
- Build one integrated schedule. Put permits, land rights, utility upgrades, equipment lead times, network construction, and commissioning on the same critical path.
- Model normal and stressed operation. Test peak heat, drought, grid stress, outage, maintenance, network-route loss, and expansion cases.
- Engage authorities and communities. Confirm the approval sequence, disclose material impacts, and document commitments before selecting a preferred site.
- Set decision gates. Do not acquire land or announce a schedule until critical capacity, rights, routes, and permits meet agreed evidence thresholds.
Evidence checklist for the site file
- Utility load letter or interconnection study covering initial and ultimate phases.
- One-line diagram, proposed connection point, upgrade drawings, cost allocation, and milestone schedule.
- Power-quality and reliability information, plus flexibility or curtailment terms.
- Water-provider capacity and quality letter, hydraulic assessment, source and drought analysis.
- Water-rights, allocation, contract, discharge, and monitoring documentation.
- Cooling energy-water model for seasonal, peak, maintenance, and restricted-water cases.
- Carrier letters, route maps, demarcations, latency and capacity data, and failure-domain analysis.
- Title, survey, zoning confirmation, permit matrix, environmental studies, stormwater and emissions plans.
- Current hazard, geotechnical, access, fuel, and insurance studies.
- Community and Indigenous-engagement record where applicable, including commitments and responsible parties.
- Expansion land plan and evidence that later utility and network phases are achievable.
- Decision log identifying every open item, owner, due date, and consequence if unresolved.
Common traps and how to correct them
“The substation is next door, so power is available.”
Why it fails: The substation may be fully loaded, lack the required voltage or protection equipment, or require transmission work. Correction: require a utility-confirmed capacity, upgrade, cost, and energization package.
“The region has low water stress.”
Why it fails: Regional environmental capacity says nothing about a provider’s unallocated treatment and pipeline capacity or the project’s legal rights. Correction: pass the environmental, infrastructure, and rights tests separately.
“Dry cooling eliminates water risk.”
Why it fails: Electricity demand and indirect water use can rise, while extreme heat may reduce performance. Correction: compare total energy and water impacts under local weather and grid conditions.
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“Two carriers equal two independent paths.”
Why it fails: Providers may share ducts, crossings, buildings, or upstream nodes. Correction: obtain physical route documentation and test the actual failure domains.
“Industrial zoning means approval is routine.”
Why it fails: Large electrical loads, generators, water, stormwater, emissions, traffic, and community impacts can trigger additional reviews. Correction: get a written permit sequence and identify every discretionary decision.
“The first phase is viable, so expansion is guaranteed.”
Why it fails: Later phases may require a second substation, larger water allocation, new network construction, or additional permits. Correction: secure evidence for each phase or label expansion as an uncommitted option.
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When to select, hold, or reject a parcel
Select
Select a parcel when the initial and planned phases have written, time-bound power and water delivery paths; cooling works under stressed conditions; network routes meet the defined failure requirements; approvals and community conditions have a credible path; and lifecycle cost and resource impacts fit the project’s limits.
Hold for further evidence
Hold a parcel when a provider has issued a conditional offer with a defined study, milestone, or permit action that can close the gap on the project schedule. Assign an owner and deadline; do not treat “under discussion” as capacity.
Reject
Reject when the required load, water rights, physical delivery, route resilience, or approvals cannot be demonstrated on the required schedule, or when mitigation depends on an uncommitted future project. This discipline prevents low land cost or attractive maps from concealing an infeasible build.
Sources and scope
This framework draws on the following current or identified technical and policy sources: ASHRAE site planning; the Open Compute Project’s March 2026 Water-Heat-Energy overview; Maryland’s Executive Order 01.01.2026.16; Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles; ERCOT’s 2026 Data Center Impact RFI; DOE’s Clean Energy Resources to Meet Data Center Electricity Demand; and DOE FEMP’s water and energy guideline. They provide assessment dimensions, not a finding that any individual site is viable.
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