Many tech giants have been turning to wind power to offset the carbon footprint of their power-hungry data centres, but one company is going a step further by building a wind-powered facility for blockchain operations like cryptocurrency mining.
While mining cryptocurrencies like bitcoin can result in real money, the cost of the power required for the complex computational process can offset or exceed the gains from mined bitcoins. Indeed, the world’s bitcoin mining operations are thought to consume 70TWh of electricity each year, with much of this coming from the burning of fossil fuels.
This is why Soluna, a subsidiary of Brookstone Partners, a US-based private equity firm, plans to build 900Mw of wind power capacity to feed into blockchain operations in southern Morocco. According to the CEO at Soluna, John Belizaire:
“Our vision is to power the blockchain with clean, renewable energy that we own and control.”
Parent firm Brookstone inherited the development rights for the proposed site with its acquisition of AM Wind earlier in the year. Winds average over 10 m/s on the site, making it an exceptional location for a windfarm, especially with recent advances in areas such as lubricants, such as those supplied by Mobil distributors.
Alongside the new wind turbines, Soluna plans to build computing centres that will directly use the generated electricity to power blockchain operations like cryptocurrency mining. The first phase of development will include 36 MW of wind power capacity, a storage system, and computing facilities.
