Following an onsite visit, MyBroadband recently reported that construction of Vantage Data Centers’ facility in Waterfall City, Midrand, appears to be going well.
Once completed, the 12-hectare data centre will feature 60 000 square metres of data centre space, and support 80MW of critical IT load. The carrier-neutral campus will also allow its customers to manage their own networks.
Vantage Data Centers, a leading global provider of hyperscale data centre campuses, first announced the construction of the R15 billion facility in Waterfall City in October 2021, as the company’s first hyperscale data centre in South Africa and on the African continent.
Strategic Location for Network Connectivity and Renewable Energy
Vantage EMEA President Antoine Boniface expressed his approval of the data centre’s location, saying that “Johannesburg is the data centre hub for sub-Saharan Africa owing to its strategic location, information technology ecosystem, fibre connectivity to the rest of Africa and the availability of renewable energy.”
The data centre will be rated a Tier 3 facility, with electrical systems that are concurrently maintainable and feature N+1 redundancy, with data backup infrastructure in place to avoid downtime during maintenance work.
Furthermore, the data centre will also use a highly efficient closed-loop chilled water system, generated through air-cooled chillers. The cooling infrastructure also contains a duplicate, complete backup system to ensure the continued efficient functioning of the data centre even if the main systems face disruptions.
In addition, Vantage Data Centres had previously entered into a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement with SolarAfrica, a pioneer in South Africa’s solar energy financing.
As part of the agreement, Vantage Data Centers will be allowed to supplement the local grid of its data centre campus with renewable energy, securing around 33% of its power supply needs for the Waterfall campus.
In addition, Vantage Data Centers has also invested in SolarAfrica to support the expansion of SolarAfrica’s De Aar solar project, as well the production of 87 MW of renewable energy. This agreement is forecasted to reduce CO2 emissions in the region by 3.8 million tons over the twenty years the agreement will be in place.
Justin Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer of EMEA and President of the UK Vantage Data Centers, said that “Vantage’s investment in SolarAfrica’s De Aar project reaffirms our continued commitment to sustainability and our drive to reach net zero by 2030.”
“Not only will energy from this investment be used to power our Johannesburg campus, but it will also serve as another example of using solar-driven energy across the data centre industry.”
“Outstanding Data Center Projects” is an awards category for this year’s W.Media Asia-Pacific Cloud & Datacenter Awards. Thinking of nominating or sponsoring? Visit our Awards Page for more information. Nominations are open until 31st July.
