The company says its fuel-cell system will need about 167,000 gallons a year for maintenance but did not answer questions about cooling-system fill, annual top-offs or total non-potable water use

Damien Willis, Organ Mountain News

LAS CRUCES - Bloom Energy says the fuel-cell system planned to power Project Jupiter will require about 167,000 gallons of water a year for long-term maintenance, providing one of the clearest figures yet for ongoing water use at the massive Doña Ana County data-center project.

But the company did not answer several broader questions from Organ Mountain News, including how much water will initially fill the data center’s closed-loop cooling system, how much makeup water that system will require each year and what Project Jupiter’s total annual non-potable water demand will be after the campus is fully built and operating.

Bloom provided the maintenance figure Sunday in response to questions about Project Jupiter’s long-term water needs.

“Water needs for long-term maintenance of the fuel cell system are expected to total approximately 167,000 gallons per year, less than the annual water used by two U.S. households,” Katja Gagen, Bloom Energy’s head of corporate communications, wrote.

The figure is separate from the approximately 960,000 gallons of water previously disclosed for the fuel-cell system’s initial startup fill.

What Bloom answered

Bloom also responded to a question about what happens to water removed from the fuel-cell system during maintenance or repairs.

The company said water is generated through the electrochemical process, recycled within the system and also exhausted from the Energy Servers.

That response did not directly address where water removed during maintenance or repairs would ultimately go.

Bloom’s answers provided a more specific picture of the fuel-cell system’s ongoing water demand but stopped short of quantifying several other parts of Project Jupiter’s water use.

What Bloom did not answer

Organ Mountain News asked Bloom, Oracle and BorderPlex Digital Assets how much water will be required for the initial fill of the data center’s closed-loop cooling system, separate from the 960,000 gallons needed for Bloom’s fuel cells.

Bloom did not provide that figure.

The company also did not answer how much water the cooling system is expected to need each year for makeup or top-offs after startup.

It did not address what circumstances could require the cooling loop to be partially or completely drained and refilled.

Bloom also did not provide a projected total for Project Jupiter’s annual non-potable water use after full buildout and commissioning.

And it did not answer whether all startup, maintenance and makeup water is expected to come from the same existing non-potable industrial well-water rights holder previously identified by Oracle.

Oracle and BorderPlex Digital Assets had not responded to those questions as of Sunday evening.

Closed-loop does not mean no water

Project Jupiter’s developers have emphasized that the data center will use a closed-loop cooling system designed to recycle water rather than continuously consume large volumes during normal operation.

Oracle has said the cooling system will require no added water during day-to-day operation, apart from rare top-offs.

But a closed-loop system still requires an initial fill and can require additional water for maintenance, repairs, evaporation losses or other operational needs.

The unanswered questions therefore matter because the public still does not have a complete figure for how much water Project Jupiter will require once the campus is fully built and operating.

Bloom’s 167,000-gallon annual maintenance estimate fills in one piece of that picture.

Several of the largest pieces remain blank.

Damien Willis is founder and editor of Organ Mountain News. If you have a personal story to share or a lead we should follow up on, reach out at OrganMountainNews@gmail.com or connect with him on X at @damienwillis.