DuPont Fabros has received an award for using recycled water to supplement the cooling system of its recently completed Santa Clara, California, data center.

While some data centers use recycled water in its cooling systems, the approach is far from orthodox, as it requires the extra expense of adopting the building infrastructure and processes to be able to use non-potable water.

The DuPont Fabros data center uses recycled water for all of its evaporative chilled-water cooling tower make-up, as well as for landscape irrigation. For this, the California chapter of the WateReuse Association gave it the Recycled Water Customer of the Year award.

Commenting on the award, Hossein Fateh, the wholesale data center provider’s CEO, said, “Not only is our commitment to provide our tenants with an efficient and cost-effective solution for their data center requirements, but also to build environmentally conscious data centers.”

The company’s LEED Gold-certified data center, one of the largest in the Valley, consists of two identical 18.2MW phases. Each phase provides about 90,000 sq ft of raised floor.

The WateReuse association is a non-profit trade organization whose membership consists of a mix of local and regional government bodies that oversee water distribution and private consulting companies.

DuPont Fabros is one of few companies to use recycled water in their Silicon Valley data centers’ cooling systems. Equinix announced plans to do so in November 2010, and a NetApp site-operations director told us in late 2009 that the company was seriously exploring the option.

Outside of the Valley, both Google and Microsoft use recycled water in data centers.

Google uses it for cooling a data center in Georgia and one in Belgium. Microsoft uses 8m gallons of recycled water at its San Antonio, Texas, data center.