Sun to power west Africa’s first Tier IV data centre in Ghana
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Sun to power west Africa’s first Tier IV data centre in Ghana

Etix Everywhere is to build west Africa’s first Tier IV data centre in Ghana, and plans a second site in the country for full redundancy.

The first data centre will be solar-powered, to ensure clean power independent of the grid, said the company.

“African data centres always face a power supply challenge,” said Samuel Ankrah, CEO of Africa Investment Group, which is a partner of Etix Everywhere in the project. “We decided to entrust Etix Everywhere and their proven design and technical know-how to tackle this issue. The Tier IV certification aims to ensure the quality of our infrastructure for our clients.”

A third partner in the project is London-based Ngoya, which focuses on African and Middle East data centres and infrastructure.

It will be a multi-tenant data centre that is carrier and vendor-neutral, said Etix Everywhere, which will build a solar plant in Accra – the capital of Ghana – next to the data centre.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of African power utilities and to secure an uninterruptible power supply for the data centre, Etix Everywhere proposed to build a solar plant next to the data centre,” said Ross Macdonald, CEO of Ngoya. “The infrastructure will be able to support the data centre at full capacity.”

The first phase of the project will offer a capacity of 150 racks and over half of this phase is already booked, said Etix Everywhere. The joint venture is planning to build a second site in Ghana to provide full redundancy.

It is not Etix Everywhere’s first African data centre: it has one in Casablanca, in Morocco, opened in May 2015.

“We are building a global network of colocation data centres so that our customers get access to the best infrastructure wherever it is needed,” said Antoine Boniface, managing director of Luxembourg-based Etix Everywhere.

“The boom in internet access on the African continent will lead to an increasing demand for carrier neutral data centres. This is the reason why we are delivering a network of interconnected data centres providing a pan-African platform for the delivery of digital services.”





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