The conversation around water has changed in the Netherlands.
When I was growing up, there was always enough water or sometimes too much water.
We never used to worry where our drinking water would come from.
Water has always been a very, very important subject in the Netherlands.
Thousands of years ago, no people were basically living there.
But then the sea water level dropped and some areas became drier.
And that's when people started moving and living in the Netherlands on little hills.
Every couple of hundreds of years we had huge flooding
and that's when the Dutch really started to manage water.
They first started with big dikes, double dikes,
and then with real water works like big sluices, like water locks.
They started digging canals for transportation.
But nowadays, like the last 10 to 20 years, we have experienced drought
for the first time.
Last summer, there were already discussions
ongoing that might not be enough to supply everybody with enough water.
The farmers couldn't use the amount of water
that they would have liked for their crops, for their lands.
We have to think about preserving the water for drier periods of time.
I'm Inge van Ditshuizen.
I'm the operations manager of
the Google data center in Eemshaven, the Netherlands.
I've been working in the chemical industry
for over 20 years and I needed something different.
I was contacted by one of the managers
in the Google data center if I wanted to apply for a position here.
And it sounded really, really interesting.
I love challenges and problem solving.
I'm leading a team that is maintaining the data center and then not the IT
equipment, but everything around it that can make the IT equipment run.
So the power supplies, the cooling systems.
There are two ways to cool data centers, cooling towers and chillers.
It's a delicate balance between water availability, energy availability.
Cooling towers is the most energy efficient way of cooling a data center.
So that's why it was chosen to have cooling towers on this site.
If you choose water cooling, then of course, you have to do a second step,
which is think about what is the most sustainable water source available.
When we started here in the Eemshaven, we always wanted to use industrial water.
However, that was not available.
So the first couple of years we used potable water.
Up to now, there always has been enough potable water in the Netherlands,
but now it's very different.
So that's why it's important to be able to use all kinds of sources of water.
What I like about Google is that they are focused on having a positive impact
on the community around them and invest in more sustainable options.
Since the beginning, we already had contact with North Water
on the options and the possibility of having industrial water available for us.
North Water is a water expert company.
They do water treatment.
They also partner on industrial water uses.
Google was the launching customer
for an industrial water pipeline
that was being built together with North Water
running from their treatment facility
in Garmerwolde all the way to the Eemshaven.
Next to this industrial water pipeline at the same time, Groningen installed
a potable water pipeline, increasing water security for the whole area here.
It was a huge project.
The pipes are really big.
It was a big construction to put all those pipelines underground.
It's 28 kilometers of pipeline.
So it took years for the agreements, the design
and the construction, and we took it into use in April 2021.
The water comes in from the Eemskanaal, then it's treated by North Water.
They take out metals and organic materials and then it's being pumped
through a big water pipeline all the way to the Eemshaven site.
The water arrives at the data center in the water metering building,
and then it's being transported from there to the cooling towers.
Then it goes to the blow down pit, where we sample again because we also need
to make sure that the discharging water has a certain quality.
It's being pumped through a pipeline to a pumping station
which is near the dike
and then is transported under the dike through a pipeline into the Wadden Sea.
When I was little, we had a river close by and then between the
summer dike and the winter dike,
there would be shallow waters and they would freeze easily.
So we would always be ice skating.
Now, when we are lucky, once
every five years we have one or two days of ice skating.
If you look at old pictures from old painters, there's a huge amount
of paintings where all people were ice skating like one, two centuries ago.
I don't think a painter from nowadays would ever be able
to paint a painting like that because those pictures are not there anymore.
I really miss it.
Drought. Climate change.
We all see that difference, I think, the Dutch people.
I'm a bit worried because if all the poles are melting
and we don't stop or at least limit the sea level rise
from the climate change, then the Netherlands will have a big challenge.
Working for Google makes me feel proud because this company
is doing so much for sustainability, for climate change.
It's an important topic in the company and that's really something to be proud of.