Bitcoin miners are helping the Texas grid brace for winter storm impact
As a major winter storm descends on Texas, crypto miners are powering down operations to help ease the burden on the state's already beleaguered power grid.
The chief concern is that we might see a repeat of last February, when a deep freeze devastated large swaths of the state, leaving 10 million Texans without electricity and resulted in a multi-system meltdown that “was within minutes of a much more serious and potentially complete blackout.” Hundreds of people died amid the multi-day outage.
Riot Blockchain, one of the biggest publicly traded crypto mining companies in America, began shutting down power to its Rockdale mine on Tuesday, a process which occurs in phases.
“As the storm has progressed, we have continued to decrease our power consumption by 98%-99%. So currently, we are only using 1%-2% of power,” said Trystine Payfer, Riot's director of communications. Payfer told CNBC Riot will continue to manage its power usage as needed until there is “no extreme stress on the ERCOT grid.”
Riot's stock closed nearly 7% lower on Wednesday, and it is down over 31% year-to-date.
Several other crypto miners across Texas have followed suit in voluntarily curtailing energy consumption in the run-up to the arctic blast.
The CEO of Rhodium Enterprises, a fully integrated bitcoin miner using liquid-cooled infrastructure, tweeted that Texas-based bitcoin miners were curtailing their load starting Wednesday, in order to “help provide excess power reserves” for the storm.
“We are proud to help stabilize the grid and help our fellow Texans stay warm,” wrote Rhodium CEO Nathan Nichols.
Other crypto miners said they will respond in real-time to the needs of the grid.
The grid is called ERCOT, short for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the organization tasked with operating it. To run smoothly, ERCOT requires a perfect balance between supply and demand. Having too much power and not enough buyers is just as bad as everyone wanting to fire up their air conditioning units on the same day in July.
For years, ERCOT has struggled with fluctuating energy prices and sporadic service, which is why it strikes deals with flexible energy buyers, like crypto miners. Through established “demand response” programs, ERCOT will actually pay major industrial users to cut power.
“They're expecting the same kind of grid load as you would have at peak summertime, so they'll likely curtail miners at some point on Friday or Saturday,” explained Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital, another major player in the U.S. mining industry.
Bitcoin miners specifically, and demand response more generally, are a powerful tool in the toolbox for grid management, according to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council.
Marathon's Thiel tells CNBC that miners have been coordinating with ERCOT since last week to get ahead of any potential problems with the grid.
“Everybody wants to collaborate, everybody wants to voluntarily do whatever it takes to support ERCOT,” he said.
The question now is when the baseload that miners use (the baked-in energy demand from miners as a collective) is shut down and transferred back to the grid, does that provide the grid with what it needs to keep functioning as normal?
“This is a key test moment for the industry,” continued Thiel.
Whether crypto miners going offline en masse in one of the biggest crypto mining jurisdictions in the world will move the price of bitcoin, the answer is probably no.
The supply delta from changing the pace of mining is typically minimal and any price moves in bitcoin or other major proof-of-work cryptocurrencies would likely have more to do with macro factors and overall risk-off behavior.
随着一场主要的冬季风暴降临德克萨斯州，加密矿工正在关闭运营，以帮助减轻该州已经陷入困境的电网的负担。
主要担心的是，我们可能会看到去年 2 月的重演，当时深度冻结摧毁了该州的大片地区，导致 1000 万德州人断电，并导致多系统崩溃，“在几分钟内发生更严重和更严重的灾难”。可能会完全停电。”在多天的停电中，数百人死亡。
Riot Blockchain 是美国最大的公开交易加密采矿公司之一，周二开始关闭其 Rockdale 矿的电源，这一过程分阶段进行。
“随着风暴的发展，我们继续将耗电量降低了 98%-99%。所以目前，我们只使用了 1%-2% 的电量，”Riot 的通讯总监 Trystine Payfer 说。 Payfer 告诉 CNBC，Riot 将继续根据需要管理其电力使用，直到“ERCOT 电网没有极端压力”。
Riot 的股价周三收盘下跌近 7%，今年迄今已下跌超过 31%。
德克萨斯州的其他几家加密货币矿工也纷纷效仿，在北极爆炸前夕自愿减少能源消耗。
Rhodium Enterprises 是一家使用液冷基础设施的完全集成的比特币矿工，其首席执行官在推特上表示，德克萨斯州的比特币矿工将从周三开始削减负载，以“帮助为风暴提供多余的电力储备”。
Rhodium 首席执行官 Nathan Nichols 写道：“我们很自豪能够帮助稳定电网并帮助我们的德州同胞保持温暖。”
其他加密矿工表示，他们将实时响应电网的需求。
该电网被称为 ERCOT，是德克萨斯州电力可靠性委员会的缩写，该组织负责运营它。为了顺利运行，ERCOT 需要在供需之间实现完美平衡。权力过大而买家不足，就像每个人都想在 7 月的同一天启动空调一样糟糕。
多年来，ERCOT 一直在与波动的能源价格和零星的服务作斗争，这就是为什么它与灵活的能源买家（如加密矿工）达成交易的原因。通过既定的“需求响应”计划，ERCOT 将实际支付主要工业用户的停电费用。
美国另一家主要参与者 Marathon Digital 的首席执行官 Fred Thiel 解释说：“他们预计与夏季高峰期相同的电网负载，因此他们可能会在周五或周六的某个时候削减矿工。”矿业。
根据德克萨斯区块链委员会主席 Lee Bratcher 的说法，比特币矿工以及更普遍的需求响应是电网管理工具箱中的一个强大工具。
Marathon 的 Thiel 告诉 CNBC，矿工自上周以来一直在与 ERCOT 进行协调，以提前应对电网的任何潜在问题。
“每个人都想合作，每个人都想自愿做任何事情来支持 ERCOT，”他说。
现在的问题是，当矿工使用的基本负荷（矿工作为一个集体的基本能源需求）被关闭并转移回电网时，这是否为电网提供了保持正常运行所需的东西？
“这是该行业的关键考验时刻，”Thiel 继续说道。
加密矿工在世界上最大的加密采矿管辖区之一集体下线是否会改变比特币的价格，答案可能是否定的。
改变采矿速度的供应增量通常很小，比特币或其他主要工作证明加密货币的任何价格变动都可能更多地与宏观因素和整体避险行为有关。
