Rack Centre to save $10m yearly from gas-powered energy

Rack Centre, a pan-African data centre platform, plans to switch its power source from diesel to gas to save more than $10 million a year in operating costs, reduce carbon footprint and environmental impact, and align with global sustainability data centre design trends.

Jasper Lankhorst, Group CEO of the Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre in West Africa said this at the 2022 AfricaCom/Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa.

The company is undertaking a range of measures that are tailored toward green design principles, some of which include switching from diesel to gas power generation, implementing water-efficient cooling systems, implementing low-energy air circulation systems, and sourcing local materials and services wherever possible.

“As a result of these moves, Rack Centre is forecasted to be 35 percent more energy-efficient than other regional data centres, and 16 percent more energy-efficient than the global average. It will reduce water consumption by 41 percent, and there will be a 45 percent saving in embodied energy in materials used,” Lankhorst said.

He also noted that there is a demand for a sustainable strategy for the business, however, going green while it is capital intensive, needs to be sustainable. Rack Centre’s goal is to be as energy efficient as possible and use reliable, low-carbon sources of power to ensure uninterrupted operations.

The company’s data centre in Lagos which already supports 1.5MW of IT power is now being expanded with a new building, the LGS 2 facility which supports 12MW of IT power. This brings the total IT power to 13.5MW built using modern, efficient and green design architecture.

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“We have a principle known as KIA – Keep In Africa, and it’s a philosophy we use in our design and the procurement process to make it sustainable with the availability of local knowledge and local skills to be able to build and operate it,” he said.

In June 2022, Rack Centre became the first International Finance Corporation (IFC) EDGE-certified data centre in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. It is officially making this the first Green Certified Data Centre in Africa. It is the most connected facility in the region according to its PeeringDB ranking and links every country on Africa’s Atlantic coast.