GOS (Groupement Orange Services) is a resource-pooling entity for the 18 Orange Middle East and Africa (OMEA) subsidiaries, which provides pooled hosting and infrastructure operation services, service platforms and IT to all the subsidiaries. The data center was built in 2016 in Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire, on a site covering 16,600 m². It hosts IT and telecommunication equipment, which support the services provided by the GOS to all OMEA subsidiaries. The GOS is one of the components of the Orange data center network in Africa, which has Uptime Institute Tier 3 certification design, consolidating Orange’s position as a key player in the sub-region’s economic ecosystem. It helps to advance digital equality by supporting States to develop agricultural, educational, and healthcare services and fosters entrepreneurship and local innovation.
This plant will be made up of 784 latest-generation photovoltaic cells and will provide the data center with an estimated 527 MWh/year of renewable energy. Its architecture was designed to work 7 days a week in self-consumption mode, i.e., the data center will directly use the energy as it is produced by the Sun (during the day). This will cover close to 60% of the data center’s daytime (7 am – 6 pm) consumption. The initiative to convert the GOS to solar power is consistent with the plan adopted by the Government of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire, which aims to make the country the sub-region’s energy hub by 2030 with 42% of renewables in the energy mix.