- SolarX has partnered with Orange Côte d’Ivoire
- The partnership concerns the solarisation of its data centres in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.
The carbon footprint of Orange Ivory Coast’s data centers in West Africa needs to be reduced. A joint venture between the Orange subsidiary and SolarX, a provider of solar energy to commercial and industrial (C&I) clients, has just been established. The newly concluded contract includes provisions for the construction of solar power systems to run Orange’s data centers.
SolarX will erect a solar photovoltaic plant in Ivory Coast for the Assabou data center in the nation’s capital Yamoussokro. Orange’s Grand-Bassam data center, which was inaugurated in 2016, has already undergone solarization (355 kWp) in collaboration with the Emirati company Butec. Solar energy should provide 50% of the electricity required to run the Assabou data center, similar to the Grand-Bassam data center.
In Burkina Faso, the partnership between Orange and SolarX concerns the Balkuy data centre. The solar system is expected to provide 37% of the electricity for this data centre in the capital Ouagadougou. Solar power is a great option for reducing the carbon footprint of data centres. Globally, these facilities account for 2% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, on par with air travel at 1.5% according to the Greenly platform.
These data centres are very energy-intensive, consuming up to 2% of the world’s electricity, as they run continuously to be able to store and share digital data at all hours. In fact, the energy consumption of this infrastructure is the main source of pollution, hence the need to power them with low carbon energy. SolarX estimates that the solar systems installed in Orange’s Balkuy and Assabou data centres will reduce their emissions by 453 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.