Vodacom has expanded the deployment of solar-powered sites in an effort, it said, to reduce carbon emissions.
It has deployed three solar-powered facilities — in Polokwane, Vereeniging and Bloemfontein — that cost the mobile operator about R8-million.
These sites are in addition to a solar project installed at a base station controller site in Randburg in May 2020, Vodacom said in a statement on Monday.
“Collectively, the three new sites will generate about 127MWh of energy annually, which will help to reduce our carbon emissions and lower electricity consumption,” it said. “The solar panels will also ease the load on the sites’ batteries in the event of load shedding.”
Vodacom said it has committed itself to reducing its environmental impact in half by 2025, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Largest impact
“We have made progress in our waste and water reduction strategies. However, energy consumption remains our largest environmental impact, requiring significant investment in order to reach the targets that we have set out to achieve.”
Vodacom last year saved 12GWh of electricity through an energy management strategy, which included investing in energy-efficiency projects.
The three solar-powered sites in South Africa form part of the 1 088 solar-powered sites across all of Vodacom’s markets. The company also installed rooftop solar at its Century City offices in Cape Town in 2012, and Vodacom Lesotho’s head office has been powered by solar energy since 2017. — © 2021 NewsCentral Media
