Texas Bitcoin Miners shuts down when the heat wave threatens the grid with rolling power outages

by James · July 12, 2022

Almost all industry level Bitcoin miners in Texas has fulfilled its promise to halt operations while the state waits for a heat wave that is expected to push the power grid to its limits.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is responsible for managing the Texas grid, yesterday sent a request that state residents try to save as much energy as they can to avoid the type of rolling power outages that have plagued the state this summer. and previous winters. For example, power outages in 2021 during a severe winter storm contributed to hundreds of deaths across the state.

Texas set an all-time record for energy use on Friday, consuming 78,206 megawatts of electricity, as reported by Bloomberg. The previous, unofficial record was set on July 5, with 77,460 megawatts.

Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Association, said Bloomberg that over 1000 megawatts in mining load has already responded to the state’s request. “This represents almost all of the industrial-scale Bitcoin mining load in Texas and allows over 1% of the total network capacity to be pushed back online for retail and commercial use,” he said.

Texas has become one of the best American destinations for miners due to both liberal regulations and very accommodating leadership. Meanwhile, New York – one of the only rival states by hash rate (a measure of computing power) – has abandoned carbon-based mining on a knife-edge after the state Senate passed a two-year moratorium on the practice last month.

Although Gov. Kathy Hochul has the final say, Kevin Zhang of the Bitcoin mining company Foundry said CNBC last month that he believes miners are already being scared away from the state because of such guidelines.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has taken the opposite approach – one that is undoubtedly counterintuitive. Abbott believes that inviting more miners to the Lone Star state can alleviate the long unstable network by stimulating the establishment of more power plants.

Some of the state’s miners include North American giants such as Riot Blockchain, Argo Blockchain and Core Scientific. Despite a successful 2021, many of these firms were forced to sell significant amounts of Bitcoin last month due to collapsing bear market revenues.