Many South African businesses are being driven to adopt solar either out of immediate necessity or because they do not forecast a reliable and stable grid for their electricity needs.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa notes that private power generation has significantly increased over the past five years.

The value of these investments from 2019 to 2023 is estimated at just under R113 billion and made 6,346MW of power available. In 2023 alone, R85 billion was invested in creating a capacity of 4,490 MW compared to R464 million in 2019, yielding 23MW.

One company that has had to take power generation into its own hands is Teraco, which recently announced the construction of a 120MW solar farm in the Free State.

Teraco is South Africa’s largest data centre provider, with over 50,000 square metres of data hall space and 223MW of critical IT load across six data centres.

That’s 5,352 MWh a day.

Its largest facilities are in Johannesburg, with three data centres that will contribute 41,400m² and 184MW to its footprint once construction on JHB4 wraps up.

Its other data centre facilities are in Rondebosch and Brackenfell in Cape Town and Riverhorse Valley in Durban.

In February, the data centre provider announced that it had secured its first grid capacity allocation from Eskom, allowing it to break ground on a 120MW utility-scale solar power plant in the Free State.

The grid allocation will allow Teraco to connect its 120MW solar facility to the national grid and wheel the power generated across Eskom and municipal networks to its facilities across the country.

Once constructed and fully operational, the 120MW solar plant will produce an estimated 338,000MWh of electricity annually.

“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,” 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.”

Teraco does have solar panels installed at its facilities but recently told MyBroadband that these barely offset its consumption.

For instance, Teraco’s JB3 data centre’s solar panels produce 1MW of power for a 60MW facility. It said its total generation from on-site panels nationwide adds up to 6MW.

South African companies kissing Eskom goodbye — Solar panels on top of a Teraco data centre

Another business looking to solar as a sustainable energy solution is Zero Carbon Charge (ZeroCC), which aims to build South Africa’s first fully off-grid electric vehicle (EV) charging stations.

ZeroCC announced that it recently started the construction of 240 renewable energy charging stations countrywide — 120 for passenger EVs in November 2023 and 120 for electric trucks in April 2024.

This forms part of its attempt to build South Africa’s most significant national network of 100% renewable energy-powered EV charging stations.

The charging stations built within the Free State will comprise 15 passenger EV charging stations and seven electric truck charging stations.

They are scheduled to be completed by 2025.

These charging stations will be off the grid, allowing them to continue functioning during load-shedding.

Each station will feature ultra-fast charging technology coupled with modular battery packs being developed in China. The goal is to charge a truck or EV in roughly 20 minutes.

The Free State project will cost R4.3 billion and create thousands of jobs in the initial phase, according to ZCC.

“Our off-grid electric vehicle (EV) charging network will not only reduce the province’s carbon footprint but also stimulate local economic growth, creating new opportunities for small businesses, communities and farmers,” said ZCC co-founder Joubert Roux.

Landowners will benefit by earning 5% of the revenue generated from the charging stations on their land.

1% of all revenue generated from the project will also be reinvested back into local socio-economic development initiatives.

The completion of ZCC’s first station has recently been delayed by three months. However, the company remains adamant that it is still on course to construct 120 stations a year after its first station’s estimated new completion date.