Malaysians will not face higher water charges even when water infrastructure is upgraded for data centres

Malaysians will not face higher water charges even when water infrastructure is upgraded for data centres

Water bill remains low, especially when compared to some other countries

1 cubic metre of water is equivalent to 1,000 litres of water. Below is the water tariff for Selangor.

For a household, it means that if we use 1,000 litres of water, we will be charged 65 sen. There is a minimum charge of RM6.50 which meant that typically each household can use up to 10 cubic meters of water and that’s 10,000 litres of water every month. A shower could use 5 litres of water per minute. So, a 5 minute shower is 25 litres of water. Note that the shower head plays an important part for this. One person showing 2 times per day for one whole month will use 1,500 litres of water.

So, 10,000 litres of water is quite a lot and as long as we do not go crazy with water usage, RM6.50 should be enough to last a family of 4 for their shower needs. Will this still be going up? Below is the latest from the government indicating that even if we need more water infrastructure, the ones who will be taking up the cost would the developers of data centers.

Article in nst.com.my. The government has given an assurance that households will not face higher water charges as Malaysia ramps up infrastructure to support the rapid expansion of data centres.

Deputy Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir told the Dewan Negara today that any upgrades to electricity and water systems required for these facilities would be financed entirely by developers, a move aimed at preventing additional financial pressure on consumers.

He said data centre growth, alongside rising electricity demand in Peninsular Malaysia, had prompted substantial grid enhancement work under the Fourth Regulatory Period from Jan 1 this year to Dec 31, 2027.

This follows more than 7,000 megawatts of committed demand already secured through Electricity Supply Agreements between operators and Tenaga Nasional Bhd up to September this year.

“The government has introduced a ‘user pays’ approach under the new tariff structure, whereby data centre operators are required to bear the additional costs of strengthening grid infrastructure. Article in nst.com.my.

When costs increase, someone has to pay for it

If you did not know, data centres use a LOT of water. If you like to know how much water could be used for these new data centers, below is one such estimation.

“Data centers use vast amounts of water, primarily for cooling, with consumption varying by size and location, but a single 100MW facility can use millions of litres daily (e.g., 4.16 million liters/day), equivalent to a small town’s usage.” Source: theconversation.com

One such centre as an example? To see the size? Please refer below:

Sedenak Tech Park (STeP) – Kulai, Johor

• Capacity: Up to 300 MW of critical IT load
• Size: Spanning 745 acres
• Highlights: Once fully operational, STeP is set to become the largest hyperscale data center campus in Southeast Asia. The project is being developed by Yondr Group in collaboration with other industry leaders.

Data source: datacenter-asia.com

Do not worry. Even though they use a lot of water, as per our Deputy Energy Transition and Water Transformation Minister Akmal Nasrullah Mohd Nasir, all these infrastructure costs will be borne by the data centre developers and Malaysian households would not need to pay for it.

Happy taking note of this and do keep this article too for reference in the future.

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