Japan's Largest Energy Provider Discovers Bitcoin Mining
The Japanese electricity provider Tepco is venturing into Bitcoin mining using green energy. Tepco plans to utilize thousands of gigawatts of otherwise unused power, as its renewable energy capacity exceeds demand.
Tepco, known for operating the Fukushima nuclear plant that was devastated by a tsunami in 2011, will now enter the Bitcoin-mining sector through its wholly-owned subsidiary Agile Energy X. The project is led by long-time Tepco manager Kenji Tateiwa, who views this initiative as a viable solution for Japan's "power control" issues, where utility companies ask producers to limit production to avoid overloading the grid.
Unlike fossil fuels, solar and wind energies are seasonally dependent and less reliable; solar panels produce maximum energy at noon but none at night, while wind turbines only work efficiently during strong winds. To counteract this surplus production issue, most grid operators in Japan cap their output, leading to wasted investments due to idle infrastructure that could be utilized if there were consumers available—now they aim to attract them via Bitcoin mining farms.
"What we are doing here has few parallels in Japan," says Tateiwa. He believes that success with their concept would lead to more adoption of green energy sources. This approach isn't new globally; Texas-based utilities have been leveraging excess power for Bitcoin mining for some time now.
Tateiwa estimates billions of dollars worth of potential from such initiatives in Japan alone. According to an Asahi Shimbun survey last year, saw suppression equivalent to 1920-gigawatt hours' generation capacity potentially usable towards cryptocurrency operations like these moving forward under government targets aiming for CO₂ neutrality by 2050, covering sixty percent of national consumption renewably sourced annually, wasting nearly 240,000 GWh presently untapped resources each annum. Theoretically generating $2.5 billion in BTC yearly utilizing just one-tenth thereof, per his calculations shared with Crypto News Flash (crypto-news-flash.com).
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