Huawei commits to clean energy in Africa

Huawei is committed to Africa’s energy transition, this week’s Solar Power Africa Conference in Cape Town heard.

“Huawei believes that what it calls 4T Technologies, will drive the development of Africa’s renewable energy: watT, heaT, baTtery and biT,” said Xia Hesheng, president of Huawei Digital Power Sub-Saharan Africa Region, in his keynote address to the conference.

“Over its 25 years of operating in Sub Saharan Africa, Huawei has a deep understanding of the region’s energy and technology requirements,” he said. “We are committed to utilising Huawei’s digital power energy technologies to build a better Africa and bring clean energy to more people, families, and organisations.”

Hesheng said that carbon neutrality had become a global consensus. Low carbonisation, digitalisation and intelligence would be key trends in the next 30 or 40 years. However, digitalisation and intelligence are all supported by computing power, which consumes a huge amount of electricity, increasing the urgency for the development of clean energy. The main form of renewable energy, solar, is in turn driven by the same three key factors: low carbon, digitalisation and intelligence. It is clear, then, that renewable energy will therefore become the main energy resource.

Hesheng said that Africa urgently needed solar energy to address its energy shortage challenges.

“Worsening load shedding and rising energy costs are seriously impacting our lives, productivity, and ability to engage meaningfully in economic activity,” he said.  

He called on every organisation to take action to transform from energy consumers to energy producers.

He gave two examples of Huawei’s own embrace of solar in South Africa:

• At Huawei’s Johannesburg campus, all 18 buildings and parking garages are covered with solar panels, supporting a solar system that provides 1500KWh per day.
• At the Waterkloof Winery in Cape Town, Huawei has worked with a local partner to provide a clean energy solution. A cluster of solar panels on the winery’s roof generates 1100KWh per day  to the winery.

“We are happy to see that more enterprises, organisations, and families are actively taking action to change from pure energy consumers to energy producers,” said Hesheng. “We want to use this occasion to call on more stakeholders to join us in this great transformation, let’s use our abundant natural resource, sunshine, to address today’s energy challenges, and in so doing, contribute to a carbon neutral future.

“Together, from energy consumers to energy producers, we can build a green Africa.”