From bits to watts

According to The Global Carbon Atlas, South Africa is the 12th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet. It is clear that the country needs to reduce its carbon emissions and accelerate the growth of renewable energy across the region to ensure an affordable and reliable energy supply.

“In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 50% of the population still don’t have access to electricity,” said Huang Su, CEO of South Africa Digital Energy Business, Huawei. “Beyond that, thousands of hospitals and schools don’t have a stable power supply. This can easily become disastrous.”

While South Africa is the leading power on the continent when it comes to power generation, Su points out that it’s currently unable to meet all its electricity demands all the time. “There is still a massive gap to be bridged,” he says, “We have to ensure we provide sufficient electricity to every African household.”

To achieve this, Huawei is backing renewable energy coupled with technology-driven data and intelligence. As Su points out, renewable energy is much cheaper than fossil-fuel-based options, with a kilowatt-hour of solar power costing less than a rand in South Africa. It is clear then, that solar power should – and likely will – play a large role in the world’s future power mix.

That is just one of the reasons why Huawei has invested heavily in smart photovoltaic (PV) solutions. By integrating AI and Cloud, Huawei has incorporated its ICT expertise with PV for optimal power generation. This allows for the construction of highly efficient, safe, and reliable solar power plants with smart O&M and grid supporting capabilities.

“Huawei is already a household name in the ICT world,” Su says. “All ICT requires power supply and Huawei has always provided that to one degree or another. Our efforts in the solar PV space are simply an extension of that.”

“Over time, Huawei will deploy more and more scalable power stations,” he adds. “These power stations can be managed and maintained online, further reducing their carbon footprint.”

“We are uniquely positioned to bring electricity, power supply, and data management together,” he concludes. “The journey from bits to watts is accelerating and we plan on leading it.”

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TOP 10 TRENDS OF DIGITAL POWER | Power Digitalisation, Creating New

Values | Whitepaper released by Digital Power Industry Work Group, Huawei Technologies

With the rapid development of the digital world, the number of data centers and sites are increasing rapidly. Digital and intelligent technologies can effectively improve power generation, maintenance, and energy efficiency, helping to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality. In the coming decade, digital power will be a vital component in the evolution and upgrade of vast domains from ICT to electrical vehicles and solar power. Digital power modernisation will be at the foundation and will be applicable to large diaspora from rural, suburban, and diverse industries such as mining and smart factories.

In December 2020, a number of authoritative experts and scholars in the digital power industry established a workgroup to discuss the energy digital transformation, and jointly released the Whitepaper on “Top 10 Trends of Digital Power” to provide strategic reference for the transformation and upgrade of the digital power industry.