Energy OPEX in Safaricom budget accounts to about 40% of the entire OPEX. There is also rising energy costs because of increase in electricity and diesel tariffs. Safaricom network also is experiencing growth because of technological changes that are power intensive and increment of coverage. As a result, there is more demand for energy, amidst rising energy costs that grows more than revenue hence need to practice energy efficiency to cut on wastage and get optimum service for little energy without compromising customer experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Safaricom therefore embarked on a rack recovery project. This was conceived from a data centre power audit that found some racks that didn\u2019t have equipment use still powered. This resulted in wastage in energy and increased the cooling load due to lack of proper air flow and the heat generated from the idle racks. The racks were identified, Safaricom liaised with the equipment owners and then a rack recovery project began that included powering off and recovering them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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It was difficult to quantify the exact energy saved due to lack of granular energy meters, subsequent upgrade projects that were done within the same data centres. However, from the power ratings of the >150 racks that were recovered each having about 6kW consumption, Safaricom estimated that over 324,000kWh were avoided each month. Safaricom estimates this to be about 7.5% consumption saving per month from its total data centres.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The challenges that were encountered involved difficulties in alignment with equipment owners, lack of proper energy measurement to accurately tell what the savings were and at times difficulty in removing the powered off rack from the data centre due to lack of proper equipment disposal process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Safaricom learnt lessons including improving stakeholder management, having a disposal process, installation of remote monitoring meters and actualising the ISO50001 process to better manage consecutive energy projects within data centres that speak to energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Safaricom practices energy efficiency to cut on wastage and get optimum service for little energy without compromising customer experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"image":"","json":{"gsma_study_logo":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Safaricom_logo_200x200.jpg","gsma_study_category":"3620","gsma_study_member":"0","gsma_study_website":"","gsma_study_email":"","gsma_study_twitter":"","gsma_study_facebook":"","gsma_study_linkedin":"","gsma_study_country":"","gsma_study_bg":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/connectivity-for-good\/external-affairs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Singtel_image_440x190.jpg","gsma_study_video":"","gsma_study_sdg":"","gsma_study_hfi":null,"gsma_study_orgs":""},"cats":{"circularity-topic":[{"term_id":3620,"name":"Energy efficiency","slug":"energy-efficiency","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3620,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3542,"count":22,"filter":"raw"}],"circularity-region":[{"term_id":3557,"name":"Sub-Saharan Africa","slug":"circularity-region-ssa","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3557,"taxonomy":"casestudy_categories","description":"","parent":3550,"count":12,"filter":"raw"}]},"orgs":[]},"tags":[],"casestudy_categories":[3620,3557],"algolia_discover_type":[3511],"class_list":["post-15955","gsma_theme_study","type-gsma_theme_study","status-publish","hentry","casestudy_categories-energy-efficiency","casestudy_categories-circularity-region-ssa","algolia_discover_type-case-study"],"yoast_head":"\n