AMAZON Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, yesterday said the first operational solar project it had enabled in South Africa had begun contributing renewable energy to the electricity grid in the Northern Cape.
The 10 megawatt (MW) solar project would supply renewable energy to AWS data centres and contribute to South Africa’s 2030 renewable energy goals.
The solar project was expected to generate up to 28000 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy per year, which was equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of more than 8000 average South African homes, it said.
The project was a single-axis tracking plant consisting of more than 24000 bifacial solar modules covering an area of 20 hectares in the Northern Cape, where solar is a valuable energy resource.
Nat Sahlstrom, a director of AWS Energy, 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 honoured 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.”
The solar project was majority-owned by black women and operated by a fully South African-owned company, according to the project developer Sola. -
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