It’s hoped a successful pilot scheme will pave the way for other corporates to follow suit and add more energy to the national grid.
Bruce Whitfield interviews Shameel Joosub, Group CEO of Vodacom.
– Vodacom’s announced it is planning a pilot project with Eskom to boost its use of renewable energy and add power to the national grid
– While this plan won’t solve load shedding it will alleviate the pressure on Eskom, says Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub
South Africa’s mobile operators have been battling to keep systems running efficiently during increased bouts of load shedding and consumers have felt the result.
Now Vodacom’s announced it’s planning a pilot project with Eskom to boost its use of renewable power.
While the company wants to source all its energy from independent power producers (IPPs), it would still depend on Eskom for transmission infrastructure.
It’s hoped a successful pilot will pave the way for other corporates to follow suit and add more energy to the national grid.
Bruce Whitfield interviews Shameel Joosub, Group CEO of Vodacom.
At the moment it operates a complex system, acquiring electricity for its 15 000 sites via 168 municipalities.
At any point Vodacom consumes 60Mw of power, Joosub says.
The company can’t build systems for self-generation at each of its sites, because there isn’t enough space at the smaller ones for solar panels, for example.
He says the solution they are designing with Eskom will not only be helpful to Vodacom, but will also be something other corporates can follow.
On our big sites… there we’re doing solar and self-generation but in other places, of course you can’t… so what we’ve been talking to Eskom about, specifically André [de Ruyter], is essentially to sign up with the IPPs…
Shameel Joosub, Group CEO – Vodacom
…so that we can then contribute that power to the grid, and they would then wheel it to our particular sites…They are trying to help us with a solution for the rest of the municipalities.
Shameel Joosub, Group CEO – Vodacom
Joosub explains the idea is basically to sign up with the IPPs, which then contribute the power to the grid with Eskom essentially allows Vodacom to consume that power.
It doesn’t sort out load shedding to be very clear, but it helps us to move all our power onto renewables… that’s what André’s been talking about – if 100 corporates can all do 50-60MW of power each, that will help to alleviate the problem.
Shameel Joosub, Group CEO – Vodacom
Joosub says Vodacom has spent R2 billion on batteries during the last two or three years of power cuts, along with buying more generators.
An additional cost is upping security at base stations to ensure those batteries don’t get stolen.
“To be honest, it’s terrible.”
“Actually we have a clear plan to reduce our carbon emissions, but in fact it’s increasing because we have to burn more fuel to get the sites up and running.”
Scroll up to listen to the interview with Joosub
This article first appeared on CapeTalk : Vodacom plans pilot with Eskom to source green power from IPPs
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