Could Wind Curtailment Be the Next Big Opportunity for Bitcoin Mining?

pgrach

newbie

Activity: 22

Merit: 15

Right, I still need to read up on how exactly they arranged it in the US. But I though mining in ERCOT zone was more tuned to peak demand, i.e. miners are connected to the grid just like any other consumer but they have that special arrangement to ramp down responding to the signal when grid is overloaded => so they switch off less frequently (mining uptime higher).

The model I am speculating about is more rigidly bound to the intermittency profile of each local wind farm: up to the point that a mining container is not even connected to the grid - but to the farm directly => mining uptime is smaller (depending on how often the given farm is curtailed).

That is why I placed this post in "speculation" subtopic

NotFuzzyWarm

legendary

Activity: 3822

Merit: 2703

Evil beware: We have waffles!

That is EXACTLY what is being done in Texas and a couple other states in the US where the grid is currently unable to carry excess power from wind/solar farms to the rest of the country. Power producers in those areas use mining to provide a variable base-load to soak up excess power and when needed, miners are paid a stipend to cut back their operations so more power goes to the grid.

It is a win-win for everybody: producers have incentive to build more wind/solar farms and miners get low-cost power.

pgrach

newbie

Activity: 22

Merit: 15

Hey everyone,

These holidays I’ve been working on a tool https://curtailcoin.com/, which tracks wind curtailment across Great Britain. For those unfamiliar, curtailment happens when wind farms produce more energy than the grid can handle or/and there is no demand. What is even more crazy here in the UK is that consumers pay wind farms for that wasted energy!

This got me make this conversion of curtailment into Bitcoin.

Here’s an example from today:

Wind farms in Scotland are idle due to low wind speeds.
In England, wind farms are close to 100% output, making up 58% of grid power.
Gas generation was dialed back, and there’s no curtailment today because the grid wasn’t congested.

But most of the days with excess wind in Scotland, the curtailment numbers are huge. Bitcoin mining could soak up surplus electricity, support grid stability, and even help renewable projects generate extra revenue.

My questions to the community:

Do you think miners could work more closely with renewable energy providers / generators?
What would it take to make wind-curtailed energy accessible for mining operations?
How to fix incentives for wind generators to motivate them to look at BTC as thier curtailment solution?
Are there existing examples where this is already being done?
I know the idea is not new, I’m still early in exploring it and would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, or critiques. If you’re curious, you can check out the tool here: curtailcoin.com.

Looking forward to the discussion.

Topic: Could Wind Curtailment Be the Next Big Opportunity for Bitcoin Mining? (Read 34 times)