Reasons why the future of Africa data centers is alternative energy

 Alternative energy is the future of data centers in Africa,' says one expert.

Jasper Lankhorst, Group Chief Executive Officer of Rack Centre, a Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data center in West Africa, has reiterated the company's commitment to the green economy while promising to continually improve its drive for sustainability in its operations. Lankhorst announced this at the recent 2022 AfricaCom/Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa.

During a panel discussion on the "Importance of Going Green" for the Future of Data Centres in Africa, he explained that Rack Centre, a pan-African data center platform, was implementing a variety of green design principles, such as switching from diesel to gas power generation, implementing water-efficient cooling systems, implementing low-energy air circulation systems, and sourcing local materials and labor.

He claims that the organization is switching from diesel to gas power not only to save more than $10 million per year in operating costs, but also to reduce carbon footprint, and environmental impact, and align with global sustainability data center design trends.

"As a result of these changes, Rack Centre will be 35% more energy-efficient than other regional data centers and 16% more energy-efficient than the global average." "It will save 41% of the embodied energy in the materials used, and it will save 45% of the water consumption," he said.

He also stated that, while customers are demanding a sustainable business strategy, the decision to go green, while capital-intensive, should be sustainable.

They must be as energy efficient as possible and use reliable, low-carbon power sources to ensure uninterrupted operations, which is in line with the organization's primary goal of providing 100% uptime.

"In addition to the existing Rack Centre LGS 1 data center in Lagos, which can handle 1.5MW of IT power, our campus is being expanded with a new building, the LGS 2 facility, which can handle 12MW of IT power." This provides a total IT power of 13.5MW in the Nigeria campus, which was built with modern, efficient, and environmentally friendly design architecture. We have a principle known as KIA - Keep In Africa - that we use in our design and procurement process to make it sustainable with the availability of local knowledge and skills to build and operate it," he added.