Solar panels are seen in this drone photo at the Impact solar facility in Deport, Texas, July 15, 2021.
Drone Base | Reuters
MIAMI — Blockstream and Jack Dorsey’s Block, formerly Square, are breaking ground on a solar- and battery-powered bitcoin mine in Texas that uses solar and storage technology from Tesla.
Tesla’s 3.8 megawatt solar PV array and 12 megawatt-hour Megapack will power the facility.
Blockstream co-founder and CEO Adam Back, a British cryptographer and a member of the “cypherpunk” crew, told CNBC on the sidelines of the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami that the mining facility is designed to be a proof of concept for 100% renewable energy bitcoin mining at scale.
“People like to debate about the different factors to do with bitcoin mining. We figured, let’s just prove it. Have an open dashboard so people can play along, maybe it can inform other players to participate,” Back said.
The dashboard will be publicly accessible and show real-time metrics of the project’s performance, including power output and total bitcoin mined. The company said a later version of the dashboard will also include solar and storage performance data points.
“This is a step to proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure and build economic growth for the future,” Back said.
Improving the economics of renewables
West Texas is a mecca of renewable energy in the United States.
“You get this perfect overlap with both sun quality and wind speed in West Texas,” said Shaun Connell, executive vice president of power at Houston-based tech company Lancium.
But a lot of that wind and solar power is concentrated in remote parts of the state. With no financial incentive, there’s little reason to build out renewable infrastructure to harness this energy.
Enter bitcoin miners. When these energy buyers co-locate with renewables, it creates a financial incentive for buildout and improves the core economics of renewable power production, which has been…
