TEPCO to mine Bitcoin with excess energy – Bitcoin Magazine
Japan’s largest electric power company is about to start mining bitcoin.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Power Grid is partnering with TRIPLE-1, a local semiconductor designer and developer, to mine bitcoin with excess energy across the country, CoinDesk first reported. TEPCO is the country’s largest electric power company by total assets, according to Statista data.
TEPCO is the utility behind the Fukushima nuclear reactor, which in 2011 was hit by an earthquake and a huge tsunami that knocked out some of the cooling systems, allowing three reactors to melt down. The power company later admitted that it had not taken stronger measures to prevent such disasters. TEPCO is still suffering from the accident, as compensation to victims takes a toll on profitability to this day. Now, the power transmission and distribution company, TEPCO Power Grid, is seeking ways to monetize surplus power with bitcoin mining through its wholly-owned subsidiary Agile Energy X.
TEPCO joins major global energy companies to jump on the bitcoin mining bandwagon. And a common denominator for most of them is a need to monetize excess power, which BTC mining does very well. ConocoPhillips is selling stranded gas to bitcoin miners in the Bakken, an oil-rich region of the US – a similar strategy to what Exxon is doing. The oil giant reportedly has a deal with Crusoe Energy Systems to divert gas that would otherwise be wasted from an oil well pad into mobile bitcoin mines. TEPCO’s setup also follows these lines.
According to a translated version of a Wednesday statement from the Japanese energy giant, Agile Energy X signed a memorandum of understanding with TRIPLE-1 on November 11 to build a constructive strategic partnership. Through the collaboration, Agile aims to deploy distributed data centers across Japan that reuse surplus electricity from renewable energy with semiconductors from TRIPLE-1.
A pilot project has already been set up at the premises of TEPCO Power Grid’s office in the Tokyo metropolitan area, according to the statement. “We have started experiments to confirm the system behavior and the impact on the power grid when equipment is operated with a large amount of power on the scale of 1500 kW, and have confirmed that the equipment can operate normally.”
TEPCO’s bitcoin mining pilot venture in Tokyo with TRIPLE-1. (Image/TEPCO)
“TRIPLE-1’s state-of-the-art process technology will be used for computational computers used in this project, and we will exclusively introduce semiconductors with extremely high power performance,” according to the statement. “We believe that the selection and introduction of energy-saving products that have a low environmental impact is an important initiative to realize a carbon-neutral society.”
