Michael Jux, Senior Area Sales Manager, STULZ, and Ton Fens, Director global Sales and Service, STULZ, share insights from STULZ on Cooling Solutions and Africa’s Growing Digital Landscape, including the company’s strategic focus on the African market, the evolving demands of data centres, and the latest trends in cooling technologies driving the future of Africa’s digital ecosystem.
As Africa continues to embrace its digital future, data centres are playing an increasingly key role in supporting the continent’s growing demand for connectivity, cloud services, and data storage. With businesses, governments, and global tech giants investing heavily in Africa’s digital infrastructure, the need for efficient, scalable, and sustainable solutions for cooling these critical facilities has never been more urgent.
Could you provide detailed information about STULZ, including its core principles and the company’s strategic positioning within the global market?
Fens: STULZ is a family-owned company with a unique legacy. Founded in 1947, it is now in its third generation of family management. We operate globally, with 24 STULZ-owned subsidiaries and over 140 partners worldwide, allowing us to have a strong presence in virtually every country.
Our equipment is designed with uniform components and the same philosophy, which means that maintenance teams, wherever they are, can seamlessly service and maintain our units, ensuring they remain operational.
At the end of the day, our goal is to keep data centres up and running for all the people using data. We make it simple by providing cooling equipment that controls temperature and humidity in data centres. Think of big players like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, but also smaller, local data centres, telecom applications, universities and even metro stations.
Ton: Data is everywhere – in people’s phones, apps, workplaces, and bank accounts – and it all produces heat. Our job is to make sure that heat stays at an acceptable level so the equipment can keep running. In essence, our job is to ensure that data centres stay cool and reliable, and that everything keeps operating perfectly.
What is STULZ currently doing in Africa, and how you are customising your cooling solutions to address the region’s unique challenges?
Jux: So, like in other parts of the world, we’re offering tailored cooling solutions for data centres across Africa. This includes working with telecom companies and data centre co-location providers. What’s a bit different in Africa, though, is that around 80% of the systems we’re installing are air-cooled, rather than using chilled water applications.
However, over the last three years, we’ve noticed that large co-location companies are entering the African market, especially in the big hubs across sub-Saharan Africa–places like Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, as well as Tanzania, where these companies are now looking for water-cooled solutions with chillers.
So overall, we’re focused on providing air-conditioning systems for technical rooms and data centres throughout Africa. We’ve been doing business across the continent since the 80s doing roll-outs together with the first mobile phone operators through STULZ UK, STULZ France and other offshore partners from Lebanon.
In 2010 we changed our sales approach by looking for more local partners. We started by asking existing clients who were servicing our units locally or even searching through resources like the Yellow Pages to find new partners – and we are still building it out today.
If needed from South Africa or Germany, our technicians travel to support clients with installation and commissioning. During these trips, we’re also always on the lookout for local partners to help with ongoing service needs. We offer basic training for local teams on handling issues like high-pressure alarms, low-pressure alarms, or power supply issues, giving them the skills to manage major problems.
How is STULZ expanding its presence in Africa’s rapidly growing market?
Jux: What sets STULZ apart in Africa is our early recognition of the continent’s potential. In 2010, we shifted our sales strategy to focus on establishing local partnerships, while many of our competitors were still managing operations from their headquarters. This approach has allowed us to build a strong and growing network across Africa. Today, when major players like AWS, Google and Facebook expand into Africa, one of their first questions is, “What’s your footprint here?” They seek a clear view of our network and contact details. While there are still areas to expand into, our well-established partnerships are a key differentiator.
In addition, we started tailoring our units for African conditions. We focused on technical features that are critical for this market, such as including power supply monitoring systems in all our units to manage issues like phase rotation, overvoltage, undervoltage, and power fluctuations across phases (L1, L2, L3). This is crucial in Africa, where power instability can damage equipment like scroll compressors if they run in reverse for even a minute.
For coastal regions, we apply a special coating to our condensers to prevent corrosion from salty condition. We also choose refrigerant gases that are widely available in each country, as it’s impractical to use newer “green” refrigerants that aren’t accessible locally. While Europe is transitioning to more environmentally friendly refrigerants in the coming years, Africa will continue to use traditional gases until around 2030-2035, when price increases may force a shift.
STULZ’s family-owned structure is another advantage. Our lean and agile decision-making processes allow us to address both technical and commercial challenges quickly and efficiently.
As many consultants and engineering firms are now relocating to Dubai, we responded by opening our Center of Excellence there. This team provides support for consultants working on African projects, advising not just on Europe and the Middle East
but on the growing number of data centre initiatives in Africa. With the power constraints and environmental regulations in Europe and Asia making data centre construction difficult, Africa and the Middle East offer ample space and resources, positioning them as ideal locations for new developments.
Africa’s data centre market is still in the early stages of growth, and we see immense potential. While markets in Europe and North America may be saturated, Africa’s infrastructure development is just beginning, and STULZ is fully committed to supporting this growth.
Jux: We already have AI- specific cooling solutions in place, like our coolant management unit (CMU). We’re already producing these solutions for markets in the U.S. and Southeast Asia, where AI-driven data centres are more prevalent. However, in Africa, the density of data centre requirements is still much lower compared to regions like the U.S., Switzerland, and Southeast Asia. For instance, I recently visited a data centre in Tanzania that managed 140 kilowatts in a large 50-by-20- meter room. By contrast, we’re working on systems that can handle 250 kilowatts per rack in much smaller spaces elsewhere, so the cooling capacity requirements here are still relatively low.
