AUSTIN (KXAN) said “Everything is bigger in Texas, including cryptocurrency mining operations. Texas is currently home to the largest cryptocurrency mining facility in North America and, of all the facilities in the state, accounts for about 15% of mining worldwide, according to researchers.”
These mining operations consume enough energy to power Texas. Computers must execute calculation algorithms to validate transactions in order to « mine » for cryptocurrency. According to the Texas Comptroller, machines that successfully complete an algorithm are given a « reward » in the form of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. According to the Texas Comptroller, the likelihood of winning the award increases with the number of computations a computer can complete.
Le Xie, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, noted that “In a nutshell, it is an extremely energy-intensive process to mine a Bitcoin. That is why the scale of these computing demands has reached the point that they can rival the consumption of a city’s worth of electricity.”
The Texas Comptroller predicts that by 2023, the state’s cryptocurrency mining operations may consume as much energy as Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States. According to Xie, the state’s mining operations are already using about as much electricity as Austin does.
According to a story in the Texas Tribune, Texas legislative officials have marketed the state as a location for mining corporations despite the amount of energy these activities consume. Facilities have relocated to certain rural regions, and some of those communities have embraced them and benefited economically from the activities.
What threat do these mining corporations have to the Texas energy grid?
The effects that these mining operations have on the Texas grid have been the subject of research by Professor Le Xie.
His study has focused on investigating the effects of mining operations on grid stability, carbon dioxide emissions, and wholesale energy market pricing.
Xie said “Their impact substantially depends upon the way you model them.” “If they were modeled as sort of a [constant] demand, then there will be a substantial impact on grid reliability” because they must always be catered to and would strain the grid.
In contrast, if the facilities are « flexible » and can be switched off during periods of grid precarity, they may be used to add additional electricity to the Texas system, according to Xie.
The research by Xie’s team was released in two issues: the June edition of Advances in Applied Energy and the March issue of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Transactions on Energy Markets, Policy and Regulation.
He said “We are pleased to say that the kind of model and data that we have utilized can be useful not only here in Texas but also around the country for decision-makers to take a look and understand their performances during stressful situations.”
The industries of cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency mining are continually developing. The most well-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has only existed since 2009.
“Any kind of demand going beyond certain thresholds would always have to be studied and integrated with careful analysis,” according to Xie. “That’s the reason we’re doing the study, to understand [crypto mines] characteristics so that we can provide better decision support for the policymakers.”
