Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon Inc. company has announced that the company has completed its first operational solar project in South Africa.
Last year in December, Amazon announced a 10 MW solar project in partnership with SOLA Group to power its new data centers including the ‘region’ data center one for storage and processing opened in Cape Town.
Spanning over an area of 20 hectares in the Northern Cape, the project is a single-axis tracking plant consisting of 24,000 bifacial solar modules and expected to generate around 28,000 MWh of energy per year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of over 8,000 average South African households.
The Director of AWS Energy, Nat Sahlstrom said, “Amazon is committed to working with governments and utility suppliers around the world to help bring more new renewable energy projects online, and we’re honored to be able to work with the Department of Minerals and Energy, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA), and Eskom to help deliver a new model for renewable energy generation in South Africa.
He also added that the project will bring Amazon closer to achieving net-zero carbon by 2040 and powering its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.
Dom Wills, CEO of SOLA Group CEO commented, “It’s important that while we’re building renewable energy capacity in South Africa that we’re also developing South African companies and skills. SOLA is committed to transforming South Africa through clean energy and this project marks a step-change in scale.”
The solar project will contribute to South Africa’s 2030 renewable energy goals and result in avoiding estimated annual carbon emissions of more than 25,000 tons, corresponding to removing around 5,400 cars from the road for a year.
