Minister of Electricity meets with Vodacom and MTN

South Africa’s newly-minted Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, met with mobile network operators on Thursday.

This is according to posts on Ramokgopa’s Twitter account.

“This morning I met with mobile network operators to understand their energy needs, as it relates to the protections of their assets and efficiency of their operations in light of load-shedding/the lack of power generation,” Ramokgopa stated.

“In tandem, the meeting also explored what it is that the network operators can do to help resolve the issue of power generation and contribute to the grid.”

Photos of the meeting show that Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub, MTN SA CEO Charles Molapisi, Telkom Consumer CEO Lunga Siyo, and Liquid Intelligent Technologies CEO Deon Geyser were present.

Representatives from Cell C and Rain were also present, as well as Association of Comms & Technology CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi and Digital Council Africa CEO Juanita Clark.

Vodacom and MTN announced large-scale projects last year to reduce and eliminate their dependence on Eskom power generation.

In September 2022, Vodacom announced that it was working with Eskom on a pilot programme to buy all its electricity from renewable independent power producers.

While Vodacom would no longer put pressure on Eskom’s ailing coal-fired power stations, it still needed to wheel the electricity it procures over Eskom’s transmission grid.

Vodacom towers wouldn’t be free from load-shedding under this programme, but they would place less strain on the power plants.

According to Vodacom, the pilot’s success would provide a blueprint for other South African corporates to replicate.

This would result in more companies reducing their reliance on Eskom’s power stations, which would help solve South Africa’s energy crisis.

In January, Vodacom said it had made significant progress on the project. However, it can only move further once it has finalised an agreement with Eskom.

MTN, meanwhile, has targeted facilities in Centurion and Gqeberha for large-scale solar deployments with battery storage within the 2023/24 financial year.

It is also in discussions with private power producers to procure electricity from renewable sources.

MTN also plans to move its headquarters and Fairland datacentre off-grid by the end of 2023 through Combined Cooling Heat and Power technology, rooftop solar systems, a concentrated solar plant, and efficient lighting replacements.

While Telkom has not announced large-scale independent power procurements, it has built solar photovoltaic (PV) plants at Telkom Park in Centurion and its Bellville Complex.

Telkom first commissioned the plant at its Centurion headquarters in 2016 after covering its car park in solar panels.

Africa Data Centres (ADC), a subsidiary of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, is developing a 10MW solar PV power plant for its Cape Town campus in collaboration with sister company Distributed Power Technologies (DPT).

Construction on the project is expected to start around April 2023 and take between six to nine months.

All of South Africa’s major mobile network operators previously told MyBroadband that they are undertaking significant energy efficiency programmes.

Last year, Joosub revealed that the company had spent a billion rand per year on batteries over two years.

MTN has also said it spent billions on batteries for its cellular network towers.

In addition, MTN revealed that during stage 5 and stage 6 power cuts, it says it goes through 450,000 million litres of fuel per month.

Assuming a diesel price of between R15 and R20 per litre, MTN is spending between R6.75 million and R9 million on diesel per month.

Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom recently announced price increases that will kick in on 1 April 2023.

Vodacom and MTN laid some of the blame on increased operating costs due to load-shedding, while Telkom’s explanation was less direct.

“Like many other South African companies and enterprises, Telkom has been impacted by the pressures driven by prevailing macroeconomic dynamics,” the company said.

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Now read: Goodbye Eskom — Vodacom to pilot buying all its power from independent producers