Nabilah Safira
TechInAfrica – Installation of a large-scale solar panel project by Distributed Power Africa (DPA) to Liquid Telecom’s building in its Midrand data center has made the company greener than before. The building, which serves as both a campus and a data center for the service provider, can be seen when passing the route from Pretoria to Johannesburg by Midrand in the middle.
The project is one of DPA’s ambitious projects in South Africa to date. The installed solar has a capacity of 1.2mW, according to what the firm tells.
“This solar deployment to Liquid Telecom Midrand is a major development in improving energy security for critical users like data centers. It will improve their power security and energy efficiencies. The power needs of data centers tend to be heavy and sensitive, and DPA’s engineering hopes to provide a reliable power supply to keep this operation running with no downtime,” explains CEO of DPA, Norman Moyo. He adds that DPA designed and is engineering the Liquid Telecom Midrand solar plant as a combined carport and rooftop solution, which will come complete with a real-time power monitoring system.
“Using energy-saving and environmentally friendly sources of energy is becoming increasingly important and companies should start looking at making them standard practice,” says CEO of Liquid Telecom South Africa, Reshaad Sha.
“Through this partnership with DPA, we are embracing cleaner sources of energy for improved information security to achieve both cost and energy efficiencies. We are also excited to draw value from our real estate, as we turn our roofs and carports into energy sources for our businesses, which is a real return on investment for us,” he concludes.
Both Liquid Telecom and DPA hasn’t set a target of the expected power savings with the installed solar, but when it does persevere judging from the stats, other firms might want to consider the approach for a greener environment too.
Source: Htxt.co.za
