Teraco To Build 120MW South Africa Solar Plant
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Data centre provider Teraco has announced it will construct a 120MW photovoltaic solar facility in South Africa’s Free State province after public utility Eskom approved its request for grid capacity allocation.
The power will be wheeled to Teraco’s data centres across South Africa. When fully operational, the plant is expected to generate more than 338,000MWh a year.
Teraco is working with Germany’s Juwi Group and the local Subsolar Energy to develop the facility, with Juwi appointed to design and manage the procurement, construction and commissioning. The project will be supported by a Rand 1.5 billion (US$79.4 million) green loan that was raised in 2022.
Once operational, the 120MW #solar PV plant is expected to produce over 338,000MWh annually. This project represents a major component of our plan to achieve our 100% #cleanenergy goal. #eskom #renewableenergy #sustainabilityRead the full story: https://t.co/AGnDXZgOAK
— @TeracoDC (@TeracoDC) February 21, 2024
Teraco has deployed about 6MW of rooftop solar at its facilities over the past two years and this will increase to 10MW as new installations become operational.
The Johannesburg-headquartered company states in its 2023 annual sustainability report that it is committed to powering its data centre colocation facilities with 50% renewable energy by 2027 and 100% by 2035.
“In South Africa, we have various energy challenges, and this [plant] presents an incredible opportunity to meet our near-term renewable energy goals while adding additional power capacity to a generation-constrained grid,” said Teraco CEO Jan Hnizdo.
“South Africa’s solar resource is a source of competitive advantage for data centres relative to other locations.”
In November 2023, Teraco said construction had started on a 30MW expansion of its CT2 hyperscale data centre facility in Cape Town, with completion planned for the first quarter of 2025.
CT2 is the latest addition to the firm’s data centre platform and will increase the critical power load capacity at its facilities to 185MW – this includes the Isando Campus (70MW), Bredell Campus (64MW), Cape Town Campus (50MW), and Durban (2.2MW).
Teraco is majority-owned by the US’ Digital Realty and a consortium of private equity investors.
Photo: Solar panels (Source: Teraco)
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