According to a leading trade group, the surge in the power requirements for the miners has prevented cryptocurrency bankruptcy cases and concerns about electric power usage from slowing the industry’s expansion in Texas.
According to Lee Bratcher, head of the business association Texas Blockchain Council, the state’s power supplies are used by bitcoin miners to the tune of 2,100 megawatts. According to Bratcher, last year’s increase in electricity use was 75% more than it had been the year before.
According to information from the grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas, those demands represent around 3.7% of the state’s lowest predicted peak load this year (ERCOT).
The Bitcoin mining industry has seen some difficulties, according to Bratcher, who noted that his group has lately witnessed two high-profile bankruptcy and other miners slowing back expansions.
The sector must also deal with new government laws, such as a planned 30% tax on power used for digital mining and requests for a regulatory framework from the U.S. Treasury secretary and commodities regulator.
This year, New York outlawed some cryptocurrency mining that relies on fossil fuel power. It is predicted that other states would do the same.
But in Texas, certain counties have provided tax incentives, and miners are still lured to the state’s wind and solar energy, which could meet approximately 39% of ERCOT’s energy requirements in 2023.
According to Matt Prusak, chief commercial officer at cryptocurrency miner U.S. Bitcoin Corp, which has one of its mining operations in a 280-megawatt wind farm in Texas, “Bitcoin mining is a very energy intensive business, which is why we tend to find places like West Texas to be full of Bitcoin miners.”
Its McCamey, Texas, location used 173,000-megawatt hours of energy in the past month, with almost 60% coming from the grid and over 40% coming from a nearby wind farm. The Energy Information Administration estimates that an American home uses roughly 10 MWh annually.
The possibility of increased cryptocurrency demand has sparked concern in Texas, where roughly 250 people perished during a winter storm blackout that revealed the weakness of the state’s grid.
Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist at the University of Texas in Austin, reported that numerous Bitcoin mines were attempting to connect to the system. The grid probably would experience problems if they all connected in the timelines they are seeking to join since the load would be increasing much more quickly than it has in the past.
