Brazilian telco Oi has brought two more solar plants online to power its operations.
The two new plants, in the states of Mato Grosso and Goiás, add to the five existing solar sites the company has in operation. Oi aims to have 32 plants in operation by next year.
About half of the company's energy already comes from renewable sources; the company aims to reach 80 percent by 2022 and 100 percent by 2025.
“The energy efficiency plan is part of the company's ESG strategy and transformation plan. And to meet the established goals, we invested in partnerships and projects to reduce operating costs efficiently for Oi's day-to-day activities. We aim to become a reference in Brazil in renewable energy, including Distributed Generation (GD) and Free Market, with 100 percent participation of clean energy in our consumption matrix”, explains Bernardo Scudiere, director of Energy and Sustainability at Oi.
The solar plants were deployed in partnership with GreenYellow; the two plants, in Nova Xavantina (MT) and Padre Bernardo (GO), have an installed capacity of 5.38 MWp (16,550 panels) and 5.54 MWp (17,050 panels), respectively.
The two companies have solar plants in Distrito Federa, Planaltina, Bela Vista do Paraíso, while a plant of the French multinational in operation since last year in Jaíba (MG).
“It is a great honor for GreenYellow to contribute to this important distributed generation project at Oi, responsible for accelerating the operator's energy transition. Initiatives like this reinforce the importance of the migration of energy consumption by large companies to renewable sources, such as the solar array," added Roberto Zerkowski, president of GreenYellow in Brazil.
Last month the Brazilian Government has outlined new measures to reduce energy consumption by federal agencies amid energy shortages caused by droughts. The requirements included that data centers should only cool data rooms “to the limit of what is technically necessary.”
Earlier this year TIM Brasil signed a renewable energy deal with Faro Energy to supply its network infrastructure with solar power, while Nabiax has tied €320 million ($379.5m) in project financing to sustainability goals.
Oi recently sold five data centers to Piemonte Holding amid ongoing post-bankruptcy restructuring efforts. It V.tal fiber-optic infrastructure assets unit is to be merged with GlobeNet.
