Key facts:
The blackout of the equipment aims to return 1,000 megawatts of electricity to the electrical service.
The heat wave affects an electrical infrastructure that works at the limit of its capacity.
Bitcoin miners are playing their cards to balance high electricity demand in Texas, United States, where a heat wave has pushed them to turn off their ASIC equipment. The authorities estimate that, as the temperature increases, the electricity demand could collapse the system.
Three companies that operate mining farms in the Lone Star State have already issued statements: Core Scientific, Riot Blockchain Inc. and Argo Blockchain Plc. The announcements were made yesterday, after ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) will ask the industry to reduce their electricity consumption as a precaution against a possible increase in temperature.
The president of the Texas Blockchain Association, Lee Bratcher, said to Bloomberg: “There are over 1,000 megawatts of Bitcoin mining load that responded to ERCOT’s conservation request by shutting down their machines to conserve power for the network.” He adds: “This accounts for almost all of the industrial-scale Bitcoin mining load in Texas, and allows for more than 1% of the total network capacity to be repurposed for retail and commercial use.”
To get an idea of the magnitude of this measure that Bitcoin miners assume, we can think that more than 300 thousand S19 Pro would be needed to consume that amount of electrical energy. These devices have a power consumption of 3,250 watts and provide 110TH/s of hashrate, in optimal conditions.
This can also be equivalent to more than 30 EH/s of Bitcoin network hashrate, if we take the efficiency measure of an S19 Pro. However, it must be considered that these mining farms can operate with less efficient equipment. Therefore, the impact of this blackout on the network is likely not to be felt in that dimension.
As seen in the graphic, Bitcoin’s hashrate dipped sharply on the day the announcements were made. It went from 220 EH/s to 180 EH/s. Hashrate measures the amount of computation put forth by Bitcoin mining teams competing against each other for a monetary reward.
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Collaboration of miners could be vital to avoid an electrical outage
Speaking of the heat wave, Core Scientific said in a release public the following: “Core Scientific’s ASIC servers in Texas comprise less than 15% of our footprint and have been shut down until further notice.” Mike Levitt
For his part, Argo indicates: “Our Helios facility will reduce its power in Dickens County to help conserve electricity in the face of the heat wave.”
According to ERCOT, the heat wave announced on Sunday could generate a total demand of more than 79,000 megawatts in the State. This demand would exceed the limits of the electric grid infrastructure that is installed in the state of Texas today.
This is not the first time something like this has happened. In early June, Bitcoin miners operating in Texas had to make the decision to shut down their equipment in the face of a heat wave that hit the state at the start of summer.