Texas paid this company to mine Bitcoin during an ongoing energy crisis

pcgamer.com

24 points·belltaco··4 comments

> This was in addition to the $9.5 million in power credits awarded to them for not drawing power away from an already strained ERCOT power grid

And later:

> "By providing power back into the ERCOT grid during periods of peak demand, the Company estimates that power credits and other benefits from curtailment activities totaled an estimated $9.5 million, significantly outweighing the reduction in BTC mined

This seems to contradict the headline: the company was paid because it didn't draw power from ERCOT and instead fed power back into it during peak demand.

Maybe a better headline would be Texas had to pay this company to stop mining bitcoins during an energy crisis?

I didn't see any mention of how they provided power back into the grid? Do they own their own power generation plant that they shared with ERCOT?

The article is wrong. They stopped their miners and thus freed up electricity to be used in other more acutely important industries. Bitcoin mining is very predictable and can be turned on and off at a moments notice. It works great as a grid stabilizer.

By making agreements with miners ERCOT can sell electricity cheaply during times of excess (where energy simply just goes into the ground) and in situations like these, they ask the miners to turn off their machines, preventing large spikes in electricity prices due to lack of supply. The question that should be asked is how much electricity did ERCOT sell to the miners?

Absolutely brilliant way to incentivice the build-out of cheap energy sources (wind, solar), since you always have a "buyer of last resort" - the bitcoin miners.

Having flexible load lets power producers invest more reliably. It’s good to see the incentive structure is set up to reward this behavior.

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