Teraco, a digital realty company and provider of interconnection platforms and vendor-neutral colocation data centres, today announced it has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with South African-based integrated energy aggregator NOA to supply wind-powered renewable energy to Teraco’s data centres.
Teraco, which announced late last year that it had commenced construction on its own 120MW solar PV plant in the Free State, has signed this PPA to complement its renewable energy programme with wind power. The agreement provides Teraco and NOA with the flexibility to grow renewable energy off-take as both companies evolve to meet increasing demand.
Wind is a key renewable energy resource for data centres that operate 24/7/365. In South Africa, wind generates power through the night and into the early morning, making it an excellent complementary source of power to solar, which is generated during daylight hours. The combination enables far greater levels of renewable energy coverage.
Bryce Allan, Head of Sustainability at Teraco, says: “The conclusion of this PPA supports our sustainable growth pathway. We appreciate NOA’s unique and collaborative approach in complementing Teraco’s renewable energy supply and look forward to a long partnership as we journey towards our 100% renewable energy goal.”
Karel Cornelissen, CEO at NOA, says: “NOA is proud to deliver our suite of renewable energy products to support Africa’s largest data centre operator’s ambitious renewable energy goals. Teraco is an industry leader and continues to set the bar high for renewable energy initiatives across South Africa’s data centre industry. By aggregating renewable energy from our fleet of generation facilities and third-party IPPs, we are well positioned to provide tailored and flexible solutions to help companies like Teraco reduce their carbon footprint.”
Under the terms of the deal, NOA will wheel renewable energy from various wind projects to Teraco’s facilities. The renewable energy wheeled to Teraco’s facilities will complement Teraco’s solar programme, maximising renewable energy across Teraco’s data centres. These projects will ramp up progressively over time, with the first power anticipated to be wheeled in 2026.
Wheeling renewable energy across electrical grids enables power to be moved from a renewable energy producer in outlying areas via existing transmission and distribution systems to end-users located in urban areas. It also enables the deployment of renewable energy projects to areas with high energy yield to maximise renewable energy generation potential.
“This is an exciting time for Teraco as we take another significant step towards meeting our 100% renewable energy ambitions and those of our clients,” says Jan Hnizdo, CEO at Teraco. “We’re looking forward to these new wind generation facilities coming online and adding much needed new renewable energy production to South Africa’s grid.”
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Teraco
Teraco, a leading carrier-neutral colocation provider in Africa, is the first provider of highly resilient, vendor-neutral data environments in sub-Saharan Africa. With its world-class data centre infrastructure and network-dense ecosystems, Teraco forms a vital part of the African internet’s backbone and is essential to the modern enterprise’s digital transformation strategy. Teraco is majority-owned by Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) – offering customers a global data centre platform designed to enable digital businesses to scale within a highly connected data community across 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents – and a consortium of private equity investors, including Berkshire Partners LLC and Permira. For more information, please visit teraco.co.za or follow us on LinkedIn and X.
Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.