Liquid Telecom, Africa’s biggest fibre company, has turned to solar power in South Africa, where recurrent power outages shut businesses temporarily earlier this year.

Distributed Power Africa installed a 1.2MW solar plant using panels on the carport and roof at Liquid Telecom’s campus and data centre in Midrand, Johannesburg.

The installation of the solar panels builds on the relationship between DPA and Econet Group, Liquid’s parent company. The company is installing Tesla’s Powerwall batteries to keep Econet’s mobile phone base stations running in Zimbabwe where electricity outages are sometimes as long as 18 hours a day.

“It will improve their power security and energy efficiencies,” Norman Moyo, the CEO of DPA, said in a statement about the solar panels at Liquid Telecom. — Reported by Antony Sguazzin, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP