South African data centres going green

[Daniel Puchert]

The industry kissing dirty energy goodbye in South Africa

Data centre operators in South Africa are reducing their reliance on coal-fired power from Eskom as they move towards clean energy goals, with Teraco aiming to achieve 100% of its energy consumption from clean sources by 2035.

Teraco told MyBroadband that the company plans to ditch dirty power, such as that from coal-fired power stations, but it will remain an Eskom customer as it requires grid connections for wheeling purposes.

 

[dontcryforme]

"by 2035"

So many politicians and companies make future commitments which they never achieve and its not like you can go in 9 years and say: "hey, you didint achieve that goal"

The response will be simply that its not 2035 yet. And when the time finally arrives, the people who made those commitments are long gone with golden handshakes.

We dont need a VAT increase, businesspeople and politicians need to be taxed on "future commitments" and only refunded that tax - without any interest - when they achieve said commitments.

 

[Johand]

"by 2035"

So many politicians and companies make future commitments which they never achieve and its not like you can go in 9 years and say: "hey, you didint achieve that goal"

The response will be simply that its not 2035 yet. And when the time finally arrives, the people who made those commitments are long gone with golden handshakes.

We dont need a VAT increase, businesspeople and politicians need to be taxed on "future commitments" and only refunded that tax - without any interest - when they achieve said commitments.

Yes. Saying you will be green in 10 years is called greenwashing. This means you are saying you are running dirty electricity hard for the next 10 years. Or saying the vehicle after my next vehicle might be an electric vehicle.

Absolutely horse... Manure...

Solar plants and battery plants take 24 months or less to commission. So you can go through 5 cycles of building renewables in 10 years. It is not like coal where you need 10 year lead time...

 

[TrueSeeker]

Well I hope they get there. It's better than not trying at all. By far.

 

[Bad Ballie]

Let just remember that the stark reality here is that companies are not going green because they want to or that they are worried about the environment, they are doing so because Eskom is incapable of supplying, or even guaranteeing their own electrical supply. The bottom line is that if you intend to run a business successfully you need certain things, like electricity, water etc and the government is too incompetent to get even these basics right.
We already have enough models to know that the return on green technology will never break even, from wind turbines to solar plants the maintenance costs and life spans mean that most plants will not pay for themselves over their lifetimes currently, hopefully this will change as technology improves, as the UK and Australia's records show.

 

[ebendl]

 

[Johnatan56]

"by 2035"

So many politicians and companies make future commitments which they never achieve and its not like you can go in 9 years and say: "hey, you didint achieve that goal"

The response will be simply that its not 2035 yet. And when the time finally arrives, the people who made those commitments are long gone with golden handshakes.

We dont need a VAT increase, businesspeople and politicians need to be taxed on "future commitments" and only refunded that tax - without any interest - when they achieve said commitments.

As others have said, greenwashing.

But in Teraco case, I would guess it's more likely to be true than not as it's cheaper.
From Bloomberg, the 120MW solar plant and others will help them get from 85-65% Eskom dependency, and they signed some wind before that.

They are trying to purchase a bit from multiple different projects that come online across the country. I would say that it's highly likely they achieve their target just due to cost saving / better reliability for them. It wouldn't surprise me if they managed to reach their goals early.

 

[Johand]

We already have enough models to know that the return on green technology will never break even, from wind turbines to solar plants the maintenance costs and life spans mean that most plants will not pay for themselves over their lifetimes currently, hopefully this will change as technology improves, as the UK and Australia's records show.

The models you craft whilst sitting on the porcelain research seat?

Renewables are by far some of the cheapest power in the history of mankind. Texas ain't full of windfarms because they are greenies. The only green they care about is cash.