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TowerXchange & Power Summit RegistrationKICC60 mins
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TowerXchange & Power Summit Registration OpensKICC60 mins
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KICC Conference Room 210 mins
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KICC Conference Room 260 mins
Lack of clarity on national (renewable) energy generation and transmission investment plans, incomplete grid infrastructure maps, barriers to private generation and lengthy interconnection processes are just some of the key policy and regulatory challenges cited by African digital infra owners. As governments look to attract investment and close the digital divide, how can energy frameworks and markets be improved to support digital infrastructure rollout:
- What are some African nations doing well and where are others falling short?
- What lessons (and warning signs) from more developed markets can be applied to the continent?
- How can digital infrastructure owners best advocate for change and position themselves as part of the solution to Africa’s electrification challenges?
- What task forces and initiatives exist to tackle policy issues and how can the industry better collaborate?
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Networking BreakKICC35 mins
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KICC Conference Room 240 mins
Better quantification of the future shape and scale of Africa’s ICT ecosystem will aid energy regulators, grid operators and IPPs better prepare for meeting data centre and telecom network energy demands. This panel of experts will help paint a picture of how the energy demand is forecast to grow in Africa, where the growth will be felt, and what factors underlie these assumptions.
- How is traffic across mobile and fixed networks expected to grow?
- Forecasts for MNO rollout of 5G and adoption of new energy saving RAN features – to what extent will this increase in traffic be handled in a more energy efficient manner?
- How will the load of a typical cell tower evolve?
- How will data centre deployment play out across Africa? What hubs will emerge?
- What shape and size of data centres will we see?
- When can we expect significant GenAI workloads and cloud storage requirements?
- How are server innovations, data centre design are cooling impacting data centre power consumption and PUE
- What is the current and forecast energy demand of Africa’s fixed networks?
- What level and type of power redundancy and back-up power will digital infracos require?
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KICC Conference Room 240 mins
Grid connections, virtual PPAs, direct investment in large scale energy projects, opex and capex led on-site generation, minigrids and more, a host of different options are available to digital infra owners to meet their energy requirements.
- What solutions are companies choosing for different scenarios and what is motivating their decisions?
- How mature and diverse is the IPP and ESCO landscape serving the African ICT sector?
- What key trends are being seen in contract structures between energy buyer and seller?
- How do company, customer and investor requirements to go green impact decisions?
- What sources of funding are available to invest in energy?
- Will the trends evolve in the future?
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Networking LunchKICC100 mins
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KICC Conference Room 230 mins
Currently 600 million Africans lack access to electricity, with distributed generation solutions required to address the challenge. Often located in remote areas lacking developed grid infrastructure, towers have the potential to serve as anchors supporting minigrid development, yet to date there has been limited deployment.
- How big is the minigrid opportunity and what proportion of towers could be candidates to be minigrid anchors?
- What have been the barriers to rollout today and to what extend do tower owners see this as an opportunity to explore?
- How will initiatives such as the World Bank and African Development Bank’s plans to connect 300 million Africans to electricity by 2030 open up new sources of funding and business models?
- How mature is the minigrid ecosystem across the African continent and who will be the key players?
- Can minigrids deliver improvements in resilience and energy costs to tower owners whilst also contributing to ESG objectives?
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KICC Conference Room 240 mins
There is no one size solution fits all when it comes to both on-site and remote renewable and/or low carbon generation. Challenges in adoption stem less from technology limitations and more from project economics, scalability and supply chain maturity – as well as suitability for the unique needs of the communications sector. This panel explores these limitations and the outlook for more cost-effective solutions.
- Technology cost reduction – what are the projections?
- Progress in the maturing of local supply chains and skill sets
- A spotlight on hydrogen supply chains
- The role for bio-based an alternative fuels
- Advanced energy storage systems and new chemistries
- Suitability and scalability of solutions for the connectivity space
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Networking BreakKICC40 mins
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KICC Conference Room 255 mins
What tangible improvements are digital infra owners generating through the application of better monitoring, analytics, automation and AI/ML
- Case studies and examples of tangible results delivered and the key areas that infra owners are focussing on next
- How do digital infra owners envision AI playing a role and do they have the necessary data organisation and skill sets to adopt it?
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KICC Conference Room 215 mins
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