Customer: Goldrush Group
Region: South Africa
Industry: Gaming and entertainment
Solution: Huawei Power-S
Partner: Huawei
Goldrush is a leading South African diversified gaming group that operates numerous casinos across the country. The national energy supply crisis poses a significant business challenge to all companies operating in South Africa. Moreover, consistent power supply is particularly important for Goldrush. A continuous, seamless supply of electricity is necessary to provide a consistent level of customer service to the casino sites and to maintain the environment that customers expect. Power disruptions are also costly to mitigate. Traditionally, many companies rely on diesel generators to provide power during load-shedding, which is expensive, leads to equipment failure due to power delivered not being of the required quality and environmentally unfriendly. Critically, in the current case, essential equipment downtime and failure would disrupt business operations and result in significant losses during the period in which client-serving machinery is not operating. The company thus requires a reliable solution to load-shedding that ensures seamless and sustained power, while enabling more cost-effective, greener mitigation strategies.
The challenge
As many South African businesses have discovered, mitigating load-shedding brings its own costs and challenges. Maintaining uninterrupted power supply often involves some combination of UPS system and diesel generator. This has numerous negative consequences. For instance, UPS batteries may need to be frequently replaced at significant expense and risk of downtime, while burning diesel is both expensive and highly polluting (bad in itself and also can compromise ESG targets). Moreover, these tools generally comprise a patchwork of technologies rather than an integrated power system.
Ultimately, South African businesses face a fundamental challenge: how to maximise revenue and customer experience during load-shedding, while minimising diesel burning and other negative externalities.
Goldrush has been spending approximately R900 per hour on diesel generators, a significant additional operational expense (100 hours of load shedding in a given month would thus translate into a R90 000 diesel expenditure). Critically, diesel generators tend to fail, directly causing a loss of revenue during load-shedding periods. Indeed, Goldrush had experienced numerous generator failures, with significant lost revenue during each period of downtime. That loss can be estimated at R3 000 000 to R10 000 000.
They wanted a more reliable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution.
The solution
Logicalis South Africa has partnered with Huawei Digital Power, which positions itself as a leading global provider of digital power solutions, to provide the groundbreaking integrated Huawei Power-S system. The Huawei Power-S is a fully integrated, fully scalable smart power system that supports multiple power sources. As the local service partner, Logicalis South Africa is able to offer full service, support and expert analysis, scaling and adapting the Huawei Power-S system to meet the client’s specific requirements and helping develop a blueprint for future growth.
Maximising revenue and resilience
To secure business continuity, Goldrush opted to initially install the Huawei Power-S at one of their casino sites. The system supports multiple energy sources, enabling the client to immediately reduce diesel use without being required to eliminate diesel entirely.
Installing the Huawei Power-S onsite produced immediate revenue gains. In the period from when the system was installed in October to 2023 to January 2024, the company saved over R400 000 in diesel costs, based on the load-shedding hours during that period.
From an operational continuity perspective, all revenue-generating equipment ran without downtime with the Huawei Power-S installed, plus the full customer experience can be maintained, with no discernible difference to customers onsite during periods of load-shedding.
Flexibility, precision and control: A modular system with central view
The Huawei Power-S is an integrated system that provides a flexible all-in-one power solution. This offers immediate benefits, even at the point of installation. Traditional power solutions generally require multi-vendor management and consist of a patchwork of technologies. The upshot is additional complexity, expense and potential incompatibilities, breakdowns and unforeseen downtime. Repairs and maintenance can be costly and unpredictable.
The modular design of the Huawei Power-S is purpose-built for ease of maintenance without interruption. Individual components can be removed and replaced without downtime. Monitoring is proactive, identifying potential issues before they occur, enabling more pinpointed maintenance and reducing the risk of downtime. By contrast, in more traditional set-ups, damage to one component in the inverter or battery system requires the whole system to be removed for repairs or replacement.
As an official local Huawei Power-S partner, Logicalis South Africa was able to provide the client with fast and simple installation, based on a careful analysis of their power system needs – in a much more compact space. The system is self-monitoring and has the option to set up smart alerts based on the client’s criteria. In fact, Logicalis was able to provide a one-day installation at the site under discussion, providing almost immediate cost-saving benefits.
A consolidated world-class equipment solution
All the Huawei Power-S components are wholly supplied by Huawei, a world-class provider of ICT infrastructure. Logicalis, in partnership with Huawei, provides an integrated service that ensures quality and reliability, and seamless supply of original parts and components.
Future-proofing power supply
Goldrush plans to ultimately move away from diesel and adopt solar as a power source. This will become increasingly urgent as diesel prices remain volatile; moreover, Eskom is set to increase electricity prices and has indicated it will charge more for companies that use additional electricity to power batteries.
The scalable Huawei Power-S system, supported by Logicalis South Africa’s professional guidance, enabled Goldrush to implement an immediate cost-saving solution that also accounts for longer term growth and new power strategies.
The flexible technology is also ideal for taking advantage of green incentives. The South African government has introduced significant tax incentives for businesses that install renewable energy solutions. As a complete multi-source power system, the Huawei Power-S enables businesses to seamlessly incorporate solar or other renewable sources as convenient, and to scale these up as required. Managers can thus develop flexible strategies to reduce their carbon footprint, optimise energy costs and leverage relevant incentives.
Logicalis was able to provide Goldrush with a smart system that ensured business continuity during load-shedding, mitigated the high cost of load-shedding (such as diesel expenditure) and offered a flexible, modular approach that enabled the clients to scale up in line with their strategy.
The Huawei Power-S offers a holistic solution to the client’s complex power requirements, installation can be achieved quickly and efficiently, backed by full-service support. While South Africa’s electricity crisis remains a complex problem demanding innovative solutions, the present case study demonstrates how smart technology makes rapidly responding to a client’s immediate power supply needs, and longer-term strategy, practical and effective.
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