ElectricityconventionLevel 1 of 6 calculation factorCalculation factor, level 1 of 6Used to calculate 28 entries, levels 3 and 5Database structure 
6Territories
5Organisations
4Occupations and activities
3Uses
2Machine operationsData centre overhead (PUE)
What the building adds to the electricity of the servers.
- For each kilowatt-hour consumed by the servers, the data centre consumes 1.1 in total.
- The factor covers the cooling and the electrical losses of the building.
- Out of scope: the construction of the building and the manufacturing of the machines.
Sentence to citeData centre overhead (PUE): × 1.10.
- Used to calculate
Origin of the value
Cooling, power supply, losses. The database selects × 1.10, the Watershed default for a large operator; for an unknown operator, Watershed selects × 1.56. The readings range from 1.08 to 1.52.
Characteristics
| Unit | factor |
|---|---|
| Counted | the cooling and the electrical losses of the building |
| Not counted | the construction of the building and the manufacturing of the machines |
| Status | convention, 7 readings of the same scope, 1 other published value |
All the characteristics
| Identifier | IA-0003, projetcelsius.com/en/ai/database/IA-0003/ |
|---|---|
| Version | 0.3 of 2 November 2026 |
| Category | Calculation factors, the foundation of the calculation |
| Choice of the selected value | written convention, with its alternatives (methodology) |
| Sources | Watershed, Uptime Institute, IEA, Google, Microsoft, Meta and 1 other, 2025 to 2026 |
| Licence | CC BY 4.0 |
This block is made of no other: its value is read from its sources.
Entries that use it (28)
Quick question, Conversation of 10 exchanges, Write an email, Write a page, Article of 1,000 words, Proofread a page, Translate a page, Query a PDF, Summarise 30 pages, Analyse a spreadsheet, Deep research, Web search with an AI, Create an image, Create a large image, Retouch a photo, Visual in 4 attempts, Clip of 5 seconds, Clip of 10 seconds, Voice mode, 1 minute, Summarise a meeting, Code suggestion, Generate a function, Have code reviewed, Coding agent hour, Browser agent, Automated workflow, Hosted model, Retraining a model and
Sources of the calculation
1 publication, for this entry and those used to calculate it, with the chosen parameters.
Energy and factors
The references of the selected values and of the entries used in this calculation.
Watershed · Aug. 2026
Estimating GHG Emissions from AI Use: Framework for Corporate-Level Measurement ↗ (new tab)
Role and limits : Watershed
Author. Bistline, Ulissi, Davis, Glidden, Joyce, Li, Mohsenin and Suh (Watershed)
What the publication covers. factors per 1,000 tokens read and written at the server before PUE (host and standby machines included), PUE separate (1.10 for a large operator, 1.56 for an unknown operator)
What it does not cover. clean measurements, the model and the hardware
Reading by the database. Default factors proposed for review (public data as of June 2026); for a large operator, taken from Google's measurement published in 2025 (Elsworth et al.), which already contains the data centre overhead; constant per token, they underestimate long contexts and agents according to the authors
Reference of the selected value
Scope of the figure used. Default factor for a large operator, from the server to the data centre; 1.56 for an unknown operator
Limit. A default value, not a measurement
Published values
8 figures for the same quantity, each in its own scope.
× 1.10 selected, between × 1.08 and × 1.52 for published values of the same scope
| Source | Date | Multiplier | What the figure measures | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PUE of the data centreselected by the database, v0.3 | 2026 | × 1.10 | the value selected by the database | same scope | convention |
| Meta ↗2025 Environmental Data Index | Oct. 2025 | × 1.08 | Data centres owned and operated by Meta, 2024 | same scope | published |
| Google ↗2026 Environmental Report | June 2026 | × 1.09 | Annual average of the data centres owned and operated by Google in 2025, continuous measurement | same scope | measured |
| Watershed ↗Estimating GHG Emissions from AI Use: Framework for Corporate-Level Measurement | August 2026 | × 1.10 | Default factor for a large operator, from the server to the data centre; 1.56 for an unknown operator | same scope | computation |
| Amazon Web Services ↗2025 Amazon Sustainability Report | 2026 | × 1.14 | Amazon data centres, global average 2025 | same scope | published |
| Microsoft ↗Datacenter efficiency (page of the Microsoft Datacenters site) | 2025 | × 1.17 | Global average of Microsoft data centres, fiscal year July 2024 to June 2025 | same scope | published |
| IEA, Energy and AI ↗Energy and AI | Apr. 2025 | × 1.41 | Weighted average of the global fleet in 2024 | same scope | estimated |
| Uptime Institute ↗Global Data Center Survey 2026 | 2026 | × 1.52 | Average declared by the 644 respondents of the global survey of 2026 | same scope | estimated |
| Google ↗Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google scale | August 2025 | × 1.72 | From chips to the complete service, standby machines included | other scope | measured |
The published figures do not all count the same scope; the scope of each figure is written next to it. Why do the estimates diverge?
Methodology conventions
With their alternatives
| Calculate a case without an entry | The formula, the default values and a step-by-step example |
|---|
Uses in the hub
Charts, figures, analyses and articles that cite this entry
- Blog articleWhat is the electricity consumption of AI? ↗
History
Entry in version 0.3 of 2 November 2026, in the database in version 0.4
- 11 November 2026Description : The database selects the level of the large operators (× 1.10) becomes The database selects × 1.10, the Watershed default for a large operator; Watershed selects × 1.56 for an unknown operator.The factor of 1.10 assumes a large operator; it does not change.
- 2 November 2026Designation : One kilowatt-hour in a data centre becomes Data centre overhead (PUE).More precise designation: the object first, the specification after the comma, the quantity or period at the end; the former title remains searchable.
- 2 November 2026Status : working value becomes convention.The factor × 1.10 is convention C3, written and dated, with its alternatives.
- 31 October 2026Creation of the database, in its first version (0.1).
