Johannesburg, South Africa – 21 February 2024 – Teraco: A Digital Realty Company, Africa’s largest interconnection hub and vendor-neutral data centre provider, has announced that it has secured its first grid capacity allocation from Eskom and will commence construction of a 120MW utility-scale solar PV energy facility in the Free State province of South Africa.
The grid capacity allocation from Eskom enables Teraco to connect its planned 120MW solar facility to the national electrical grid. The power generated will be wheeled across Eskom and municipal power networks to Teraco’s facilities across South Africa.
“This allocation is a significant step towards meeting our renewable energy ambitions and those of our clients. It is also only the first phase of our longer-term renewable energy commitment. We have been on a long journey over the last few years to obtain these approvals, and our aim now is to execute quickly on the opportunity,” says Jan Hnizdo, CEO at Teraco.
“In South Africa, we have various energy challenges, and this presents an incredible opportunity to meet our near-term renewable energy goals while adding additional power capacity to a generation constrained grid. This will be a unique approach in Africa since Teraco will not only own its data centre facilities but also a significant renewable energy source with which to power them, creating a sustainable energy path to support growth. This initiative aligns with Teraco’s long-term vision of powering the digital transformation across Africa. South Africa’s solar resource is a source of competitive advantage for data centres relative to other locations,” he adds.
When fully operational, the 120MW solar PV plant is expected to produce more than 338 000MWh annually. “This PV project represents a massive component of our plan to achieve our 100% clean energy goal,” says Bryce Allan, Head of Sustainability at Teraco. “In addition to this project, over the past two years, Teraco has deployed approximately 6MW of roof-top solar integrated into its facilities, and this is to be increased to 10MW as new facilities become operational.” As part of construction design, Teraco facilities are built to maximise their solar yield potential.
Teraco has partnered with JUWI Renewable Energies South Africa and Subsolar to develop the 120MW solar PV plant, with JUWI appointed to design and manage the procurement, construction, and commissioning. In a first for Teraco, a green loan has been raised to finance the building of the plant. Choosing the right partners has been crucial to delivering on Teraco’s renewable energy strategy and vision.
Wheeling renewable energy across electrical grids enables power to be moved from a renewable energy producer in outlying areas via existing transmission and distribution systems to end-users located in urban areas. It also enables the deployment of renewable energy projects to areas with high energy yield to maximise renewable energy generation potential.
About Teraco
Teraco, a leading carrier-neutral colocation provider in Africa, is the first provider of highly resilient, vendor-neutral data environments in sub-Saharan Africa. With its world-class data centre infrastructure and network-dense ecosystems, Teraco forms a vital part of the African Internet’s backbone and is essential to the modern enterprise’s digital transformation strategy. Teraco is majority-owned by Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) – offering customers a global data centre platform designed to enable digital businesses to scale within a highly connected data community across 300+ data centres in 50+ metros and 25+ countries on six continents – together with a continuing interest maintained by a consortium of private equity investors, including Berkshire Partners LLC and Permira. For more information, please visit teraco.co.za or follow us on LinkedIn and X.
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.
