Aggreko guaranteed World Cup power without building a plant

Hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup meant South Africa needed to guarantee absolutely uninterrupted power to ten stadiums, the international broadcast centre and FIFA's own headquarters for the tournament's duration, feeding a live broadcast that would reach more than three billion viewers worldwide. A single blackout during a match would be a global embarrassment with no way to undo it, but building permanent generating capacity for a demand spike that would exist for a single month, then never again at that scale, made no economic sense for the host country's utility.

No power company sells 'guaranteed uninterrupted electricity for one month, then remove everything' as a standard product — a permanent utility is built and priced to run indefinitely, not to be trucked in and out for a single event.

Aggreko, in joint venture with South Africa's Shanduka Group, was contracted to supply and guarantee the power itself rather than sell or lease generating equipment: it installed roughly 300 kilometres of cable and around 30 megawatts of temporary generating capacity across all ten World Cup stadiums, the broadcast centre and FIFA headquarters, running, maintaining and guaranteeing the entire temporary system for the tournament's duration before dismantling and removing it afterward — the host never owned or operated a single generator.

Rented the guarantee of zero-failure power, not equipment: installed, ran, and removed a temporary system, so the host never owned a generator.

Hosts avoid permanent capital costs for a one-month need.

Aggreko spreads fleet costs across many events, lowering unit cost.

The guarantee shifts risk to the provider, who is incentivized to deliver.

Temporary setup allows rapid deployment and removal, matching the event window.

For a temporary, unrepeatable spike in demand, sell the guarantee of capacity, not the infrastructure, and own the delivery risk.

Aggreko powered all ten 2010 World Cup stadiums, the broadcast centre and FIFA HQ, with no reported broadcast power failure. Aggreko has since become the default temporary-power supplier for the world's highest-stakes one-off events — the Olympics, further World Cups, state visits and post-disaster response — on the same premise: sell the guarantee of continuous power for an unrepeatable event, never the generators themselves.