Sify to power its data centre business with wind and solar energy

Sify Technologies Ltd, an information and communications technology company, has signed a new deal with Singapore-based Vibrant Energy Holdings to procure 231 MW of electricity from solar and wind farms to supply the power needs of its hyper-scale data centres.

It was announced by the two companies that the Indian firm inked power purchase agreements (PPAs) to help meet the electricity requirements of its data centres in India. To begin with, the contracted power is expected to benefit Sify’s latest flagship data facilities in Mumbai. The new power off-take will cover most of their demand.

The IT conglomerate is an Indian entity while Vibrant Energy Holdings is owned by a portfolio company of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group Ltd (GIG).

Of the total capacity contracted, about 67 MW will come from solar parks that were just commissioned. The ICT solutions provider has mentioned that it wants to continue providing power generated from renewable sources across its data centre portfolio in India. It wants to reduce its carbon footprint from the operations by simply axing off its dependence on fossil fuels.

M P Vijay Kumar, CFO, Sify, said, “In Mumbai we have data centres in three locations. This 231 MW is one of the three locations and for one campus in Mumbai. For others we will do it over a period of time.”

“We are scheduled to create about 200 MW of capacity of data centres in the next four years. Some projects are currently underway with construction already commenced while some schedule to commence,” adds the CFO. It has been learnt that the data centre business of Sify is spread across six cities with 11 data centres.

Sify chairman Raju Vegesna said, “with the constantly expanding need for world-class data centre facilities to meet the burgeoning data centric transformation of Indian businesses, we believe that investing in clean energy sources to fuel this transformation is a social imperative.”

Vibrant Energy’s CEO Srini Viswanathan informed, “Vibrant is looking forward to continuing to work with Sify to support them in their 100% renewable energy goals.” Vibrant Energy is majority-owned by Blue Leaf Energy Asia Pte Ltd, which is a portfolio company of GIG.