Living in Africa, we’re all acutely aware of the scarcity of water. As a water-scarce continent with limited renewable freshwater resources, water demand often exceeds supply, resulting in periodic water interruptions and restrictions.
As South Africans, we see headlines urging us to use this precious resource sparingly, store water where possible, and report any leaks to local municipalities. While these actions are vital, the broader problem is rooted in a mix of ageing infrastructure, population growth, and the impact of climate change.
In this blog, we discuss South Africa’s ongoing water crisis, and how Teraco is navigating these challenges.
Our commitment to sustainable water management
Teraco’s commitment to the highest standards of ethical and responsible business is reflected in our sustainability programme, which is rooted in three elements of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG). Environmental responsibility has always formed a key part of everything we do, whether we’re building new data centres or expanding existing facilities. We not only strive to be good stewards of the environment and resources we consume, but we help our clients operate more sustainably too by monitoring and managing our water consumption.
How today’s actions impact on tomorrow’s environment is a top priority for Teraco, for our clients and theirs. Embracing sustainability is an investment in the continuance of our business and theirs. Doing business with an ESG focus and sustainability goals is increasingly important as organisations embed sustainability as a key metric when delivering their products and services or contracting with suppliers and third-party service providers.
Organisations realise their IT footprint has a considerable impact on their carbon emissions and consumption of resources. To address this, they are moving their workloads to third-party data centre providers that take greater accountability for their stewardship of the environment.
At Teraco, we are committed to minimising our environmental footprint, and water management is a critical aspect of this commitment. Our sustainable water management approach includes proactive efforts to reduce, recycle, and reuse water in all our new-build and operational facilities.
Here’s a closer look at Teraco’s strategies:
Our closed-loop cooling system designs focus on sustainability, with 100% free air cooling and no direct reliance on water replenishment for the ongoing cooling process. In the event of a water supply interruption, our cooling system remains unaffected. Our closed-loop water cooling systems, used across most of our facilities, minimise water lost to cooling and significantly reduce environmental contamination risk.
Our rainwater catchment and borehole water systems are installed across our facilities, minimising our reliance on municipal water supplies. We harvested 1 382 kilolitres of rainwater and used 1 870 kilolitres of borehole water, displacing municipal water consumption by just over 9%.
By monitoring and tracking our water usage, our data centres maintain a low water usage effectiveness (WUE) ratio, using only 0.10 L/kWh in 2023, which is less than half a cup of water per IT kWh. In 2024, we reduced this further to 0.04 L/kWh, which equates to only one quarter cup of water used per IT kWh. To put this into context, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study reported that the average data centre WUE in the United States is 1.8 L/kWh.
We are committed to optimising the use of water in our facilities through the reduction, recycling, and reuse in our operating activities. Alternative water management and consumption reduction options are explored on an ongoing basis by our engineering team. This feeds into our facility design and improvement plans for future new facility builds.
We have installed water storage tanks to maintain backup supplies during interruptions, and we reuse greywater for irrigation and non-potable uses.
Teraco has identified all significant water sources as well as water use relating to data centre operations (water used for cooling, humidification, and cleaning HVAC equipment), as well as general facility water use (sanitation, cleaning, garden irrigation, etc.) With this information, we can accurately track how much water is used to keep the environment in our data centres at the right temperature and humidity for our client’s IT equipment.
Regular updates with local authorities help us prepare for water interruptions, ensuring that our operations can continue seamlessly despite external disruptions.
Our facilities are designed to operate without a primary water source, and with access to boreholes on site allows us to continue our operations even during extended water interruptions.
The way forward
South Africa’s water crisis remains a pressing challenge, but with concerted efforts from government, businesses, and citizens, we can work towards sustainable water management solutions. Through investment in infrastructure, innovative water-saving technologies, and a focus on conservation, South Africa can further strengthen its water resilience.
At Teraco, we are committed to playing our part by implementing responsible water management strategies, helping to ensure a sustainable future for our country’s most precious resource. Together, we can make every drop count.
Water is used for cooling by utilities, which means water usage will decrease as power shifts to renewable sources. Combined-cycle thermal plants used to generate electricity, nuclear, and coal-fired facilities all use a tremendous amount of water in the generation process. Using less power results in less water being consumed.
Teraco continually finds ways to improve the power usage effectiveness (PUE) of its data centres, which has resulted in a continued reduction of our average annual blended PUE, with a target of 1.50 for 2024. Our new facilities are designed to achieve an annual blended PUE of 1.30.
Our teams regularly engage in initiatives to minimise and continuously improve our PUE performance, which includes the use of LED lighting and motion detection sensors, heat extraction, energy recycling, rack blanking panels, and optimised placement of floor grills.
Replacing incandescent and fluorescent lightbulbs with LEDs coupled with motion detection sensors has resulted in a 75% energy saving for lighting our facilities.
Extraction hoods have been placed directly over UPS systems to remove heat at the source, lowering overall cooling requirements in energy centres. We use the waste heat from our transformers to warm up our generator engine blocks, thus reducing/eliminating power used by the engine block heaters.
Server racks are checked regularly, with blanking panels placed in empty rack spaces to reduce the energy required to cool our data halls. Careful management of the floor grill placement increases the temperature of the return air from the data halls, improving the efficiency of our cooling plant.
A significant focus on energy efficiency initiatives has reduced our annual blended PUE by more than 24% since 2017.
South Africa’s response to water interruptions
To address the ongoing water interruptions and improve water security, some of the primary actions being taken to improve water security include the following:
Infrastructure upgrades – Municipalities are investing in leak detection technologies and maintenance programmes to reduce water wastage from aging pipes. Investments in water distribution systems are essential for efficient water delivery and reducing losses. New dams and expanded reservoirs are being built to increase water storage and buffer against droughts.
Water reclamation and reuse – Encouraging greywater systems for non-potable uses like irrigation reduces the demand for fresh water. Encouraging industries to recycle water in their processes helps to conserve fresh water.
Legislation, regulation, and efficiency standards – Regulations now require water-efficient standards for new appliances and fixtures, reducing overall household consumption. New buildings are required to install water-efficient systems, and water management policies are being enforced more strictly.
Long-term planning – The Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approach co-ordinates the management of water, land, and related resources to maximise economic and social welfare while ensuring the sustainability of vital ecosystems. Municipalities are developing long-term water management strategies, including conservation, reuse, and the development of alternative water sources like desalination.
Demand management – In times of drought or low reservoir levels, municipalities impose water restrictions, limiting water use by households, businesses, and industries. Municipalities have implemented tiered pricing, where higher water consumption results in higher tariffs, encouraging water-saving practices.
We recognise that many of our stakeholders want to know more about how we use water and how we’re working to use it more responsibly. That’s why we’ve taken steps to increase transparency on our water use, published annually in our Sustainability Report. In addition to our water optimisation efforts, our operations team has been developing and implementing water efficiency best practices and improving our water metering systems at all existing data centres.
Externally, we are developing measurement frameworks and standards to support water reporting efforts. At Teraco, energy efficiency and environmental responsibility will continue to be a primary focus. As our sustainability journey continues and makes advances, our commitment to transparency will help our clients achieve their own sustainability goals.
