Teraco's CEO, Jan Hnizdo, outlined the company's ambitious goal, stating, "The plan is to get all of our power from renewable energy sources by 2035." South Africa grapples with daily power outages, with homes and businesses experiencing more than 10 hours without electricity. In response to this challenge, companies, including Teraco, are investing in their own generation facilities. “Over the past two years, our uptime has been 100%, but grid availability has been around 15% and at some sites at about 20%. So we needed to supplement that with diesel, and it’s a huge cost. I can tell you it costs millions of rands in a month. It’s a huge cost to us,” he told IT Web .

The solar plant is expected to provide eight hours of daily power supply, acting as a supplement to power from Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. Teraco anticipates a reduction in the state-owned power utility's coal dependency from 85% to 60% over the next three years, thanks to the increasing presence of independent power producers, BNN Bloomberg reports.

The negotiations to secure agreements with the South African government and Eskom to connect to the grid spanned approximately three years. Teraco's renewable energy facilities are slated to come online within the next three years, signalling a transformative step towards sustainable and resilient power solutions in South Africa.

These facilities are expected to not only power Teraco's data operations but also address the challenges posed by frequent blackouts in the SADC nation.

Despite the challenging conditions posed by the altitude, standing at an average of 4,650 meters, the project was completed in 260 days with an investment of 640 million yuan (about $90.36 million), local media Xinhua reported.

“The wind farm's construction and operation will play a crucial role in demonstrating and promoting high-altitude wind turbine research, development and application, as well as the large-scale development of high-altitude wind power projects,” said CHN Energy, quoted by local media Xinhua .

The wind farm is expected to generate approximately 200 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. This output will result in saving about 60,000 tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by around 160,000 tonnes.

The initiative aligns with the region's broader efforts to promote new energy sources, including photovoltaic and wind power.

“A feasibility study will be carried out and will be followed by the construction of the relevant infrastructure in Zanzibar. It will be an environmentally friendly project since the infrastructure will be set up out at sea and on shores,” he added.

The Engineering Projects and Asset Management Director at Pougex Energy Proprietary, Charles Lwanda highlighted that the favourable investment environment established by the Zanzibar government was the primary factor that influenced the international firm's decision to invest in the region.

“The great thing about this energy project is that it will be sustainable and long-lasting since it will be using a renewable source. It will also help reduce carbon emissions and will create jobs for the local population,” Lwanda said.

Zanzibar presently receives 125MW of electricity from mainland Tanzania through the Tanzania Electric Supply Company (Tanesco), accounting for approximately 90 per cent of the archipelago's total electricity requirements.