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Jan Hnizdo, CEO of Terrazzo
Painting hardly It dried up in phase 1 of Teraco’s massive new expansion of its Isando data center, but the company is already embarking on its next big build: a massive R4 billion facility north of OR Tambo International Airport.
The new data center will be Africa’s largest stand-alone data center, with 38MW base load and 16,000 square meters of IT space, Teraco CEO Jan Hnizdo said in a telephone interview with TechCentral on Monday.
The billion-rand data center, which will be located just off the R21 highway near the Serengeti Golf & Wildlife Estate, is being built to meet expected future demand, especially from international technology companies seeking computing facilities. in the cloud “hyperscale” the markets of South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
Hnizdo said there is already a substantial amount of fiber optic infrastructure along R21 from various telecom operators. The new facility is effectively an expansion of Teraco’s Bredell facility further south, which is “practically exhausted.” However, it is much larger than Bredell, which has 13MW of critical power carrying capacity.
At 38MW, the new site, known as JB4, is just 1MW less than what is available across the Isando campus, which is the initial construction site for Teraco’s data center in Gauteng. The Isando site has expanded significantly over the years from JB1 (which now consists of two buildings) to JB3. Bredell’s site is known as JB2.
Debt and equity
JB4 will be paid off through a combination of debt and equity, and Absa, a longtime Teraco partner, will return to the party with debt financing. Teraco’s main shareholders are Berkshire Partners and Permira Holdings.
The latest data center construction plan comes just months after Teraco announced plans to expand in Cape Town with a new 18MW, 8,000-square-meter facility. Its small 1MW site near Durban is also being updated.
Here are some key facts about the new JB4 installation:
- Brings critical power carrying capacity at Teraco facilities to more than 110MW, which includes Isando JB1 / JB3 (39MW), Bredell JB2 (13MW), Rondebosch Cape Town CT1 (3MW), Brackenfell Cape Town CT2 ( 18MW) and Durban (1MW)).
- JB4 will be the largest single-site data center on the African continent, comprising 50,000 square meters of building structure with 80 MW of electrical power supply.
- Located in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, next to the R21 commercial corridor, the facility will have multiple fiber routes to the Teraco Isando campus connectivity center (JB1 / JB3) located approximately 20 km away.
- JB4 will be built in two phases spread over 6ha of land.
- Phase 1 of JB4 includes eight 1,000-square-meter warehouses with 19 MW of critical energy load.
- When completed, it will have 16 1,000m2 warehouses with 38MW of critical power load.
- The new data center development is being built in line with global hyperscale requirements, as well as international compliance standards, and will augment the existing portfolio of ISO9001, ISO27001, PCI-DSS and ISAE3402 certified data center facilities .
The JB4 site will depend on Eskom for power, at least for now. The building itself, outside of the IT space, will use rooftop solar power for common area lighting and power needs. However, the energy-intensive part of the data center will get power from Eskom.
Surrender of the Teraco JB4 data center. Credit: B2 Architects
Surrender of the Teraco JB4 data center. Credit: B2 Architects
Surrender of the Teraco JB4 data center. Credit: B2 Architects
“That could change as time goes on, with more and more guys getting into the energy game,” Hnizdo said. “We definitely want to do the right thing (in terms of green energy), but it is difficult in South Africa at the moment. You have to buy from the municipality ”.
However, he said he is optimistic that the energy landscape will change in the coming years and that Teraco will be able to obtain electricity from alternative sources.
JB4 is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. – © 2020 NewsCentral Media
